Old English social life as told by the parish registers

1p Er ish |
\ Social: Life +

as told bp the =
Parish Register

T. F. THISELTON DYER

CENTRE

for
REFORMATION

and

RENAISSANCE
SEODIES

VICTORIA
UNIVERSITY

OLD ENGLISH SOCIAL LIFE AS TOLD
BY FEE PARISH REGISTERS.

Sw ENGLISH SOCIAL LIFE

INS) TROED BY THE

PARISH REGISTERS.

BY

fee PeSEETON-DYER, M.A. Oxon.

AUTHOR OF ‘CHURCH LORE GLEANINGS,’ ETC.

ie

LONDON :
POPMIORN SPOCK 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
1898.

REF. & REN.

S D416
30 3 -13e%

LANAN UNSIL NEI SS EESTI

[TID NLL hy

CONTENTS:
INTRODUCTION - - -
CHAPTER I.
PARISH LIFE - - - -
CHAPTER TI.

PARSON AND PEOPLE - = =

CHAPTER III.

SUPERSTITIONS AND STRANGE BELIEFS

CHAPTER IV:

EPIDEMICS = = = =

CHABHRER V.

PARISH SCANDALS AND PUNISHMENTS

CHARDRER VI:

BIRTH AND BAPTISM - - =

PAGE

25

47

69

94

107

vi Contents.

CHAPTER Valle

MARRIAGE = = - - -

CHARTER VITI

DEATH AND THE GRAVE

CAT HEAR exe
SOCIAL USAGES - - -

CHAPTER: X
PARISH CUSTOMS

CHAPTER XI.

SOME CHURCH CUSTOMS

CHARTER XIIE

STRANGE NATURAL PHENOMENA = -

CHARMER TXIN.

STRANGE SIGHTS - = e

CRARTMNDIN XIV

LOCAL EVENTS F > = -

INDEX z = - - E

PAGE

125

147

170

192

204

220

237

243

255

eee ee

SOUTIL LIFE AS TOLD BY THE
PARISH REGISTERS.

PRODUCTION.

S almost unique records of the domestic
A history of the English people in days
gone by, the parish registers are of priceless
value. It is only of late years, however, that
their real importance has been duly estimated, and
means suggested for their security and preservation
in time to come. Indeed, it must ever be a source
of deep regret to the historian and antiquary that
such precious documents should have been for so
many years the objects of careless indifference,
their safe-keeping only too frequently having been
committed either to an ignorant parish clerk, or to
an apathetic parson. Hence we find repeated
notices of the mutilation and partial destruction
of registers, the result im most cases of neglect.
Mr. Bigland, in writing on the subject, mentions
his having to consult a register, and his surprise
when directed to the cottage of a poor labouring

I

2 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

man, as clerk of the parish, where he found the
document in the drawer of an old table, amongst
a lot of rubbish. In a Northamptonshire parish,
an old parchment register was discovered in a
cottage, some of the pages of which were tacked
together as a covering for the tester of a bedstead.
And in another parish the clerk, being a tailor,
in order to supply himself with measures, had cut
out more than sixteen leaves of the old register.
In an Essex parish, the clerk not having any ink
or paper to make an extract for an applicant,
observed, ‘Oh, you may as well have the leaf as
The 1S, ’ and, taking out a pocket- -knife, he gave the
applicant the entire two pages.“

It is also on record that an enterprising grocer,
being clerk of the parish, found the register
invaluable for wrapping up his grocery com-
modities ; and it is told how a curate’s wife used
the leaves of the parish register for making her
husbands Kettle “holders: A member of the
Harleian Society tells a curious story of the
Blythburgh registers It appears that when
Suckling wrote his Suffolk History, the Blyth-
burgh Church chest was filled with important
deeds, and the registers were nearly perfect.
Now only a few leaves remain of the register
prior to the year 1700. ‘The repont iS mania
former clerk, in showing this fine old church to
visitors, presented those curious in old papers and
autographs with a leaf from the register, or some
other document, as a memento of the visit.

* Burn, ‘ History of Parish Registers.’
f See the Standard, January 8, 1880.

Introduction. 3

Amongst some of the further disasters that
have befallen these ill-used records, we may allude
to their being occasionally sold as waste-paper,
their destruction by fire at the parson’s residence,
and their complete loss through being stolen.

In a curious work by Francis Sadler (1738,
Pp. 54), entitled ‘Exactions of Parish Fees dis-
covered,’ it is recorded how one Philips, late clerk
of Lambeth, ran away with the register-book,
whereby the parish became great sufferers, for no
person born in the parish could have a transcript
of the register to prove himself heir to an estate.

In the Norwich Mercury of August 17, 1776,

this notice occurs:

‘Wroxham Church, — Whereas in night
between 5th and 6th of this month the Parish
Church of Wroxham was forcibly entered, and
the chest in chancel broken, from whence the
surplice was taken and torn in pieces, and two
books, out of which were torn and carried away
several leaves, containing the register of christen-
ings and burials within the said parish from the
year 1732 to the present time: The minister and
churchwardens and inhabitants of the said parish
offer a reward of twenty-five guineas to any person
who will give information whereby the person or
persons, or any one of them, concerned as above,
may be convicted thereof, which reward of twenty-
five guineas I promise hereby to pay on conviction.

SDancer COLLYER, Vicar.’

Some years ago the registers of Kew, containing
the baptism and marriage of the late Duke of
1—2

4 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

Kent, the father of her present Majesty, and other
royal births, deaths and marriages, were stolen.
And the following extract from Archdeacon
Musgrave’s Charge to his clergy in May, 1865, is
a striking proof, if such were necessary, of the sad
havoc which has in the course of past years
befallen these parochial archives: ‘In the exercise
of my duty, I had to assist in recovering some
registers carried off to a far-distant part of the
country by a late incumbent, and long detained,
to the great uneasiness and apprehension of the
parish, I might also tell of a missing register—
the one in use immediately before the present
Marriage Act —which, at the cost of much anxious
inquiry, I traced to another riding, and eventually
found among the books and papers of a deceased
incumbent. Or. I might advert to a mass of
neglected, mutilated sheets, with no cover, inci~
dentally discovered by myself i in an outhouse of a
parsonage in Craven; or, to add but one other
instance, which, if it were not too irreparable a
mischief, might provoke a smile. I have seen the
entries of half a century cut away from a parchment
register by a sacrilegious parish clerk, to subserve
the purpose of his ordinary occupation as a tailor.’
And Mr. T. P. Taswell-Langmead, in the Law
Magazine and Review for May, 1878, reminds
his readers that ‘fire, tempest, burglary, theft,
damp, mildew, careless or malicious injury,
criminal erasure and interpolation, loss, and all
the other various accidents which have been surely
but gradually bringing about the destruction of
these registers, are still in active operation.” On

re eae T ARRE A E To ee eS

Introduction. 5

the importance of the parochial registers as legal
evidence, he adds, ‘it is unnecessary to enlarge.
Dispersed all over the kingdom, the registers are
inaccessible to genuine searchers, unless at a large
expenditure of time and money, and are in the
hands of custodians who frequently cannot decipher
the old Court-hand and crabbed entries of the
early Latin. When required to be produced in
court for legal purposes, the registers are exposed
to the risks incidental to transmission from remote
country parishes; and while suitors are put to
special expense, the clerical custodians are taken
away from their proper parochial duties.’ *

Annexed to the transcript of the Hitchin parish
registers for the years 1665 to 1667 isa strip of
parchment containing the following note :

‘These are to certifie all persons whom it doth
or may concerne, that the regestry for Christnings,
Marriages and Burialls in the Parish of Hitchin,
Countie of Hertford, Diocesse of Lincolne, and
Archdeaconry of Huntingdon, through the care-
lessnesse and neglect of former Regesters, 1s wholly
lost for the space of seventeene yeares and upwards
last past, that is, from the first day of February
one thousand six hundred fowerty and eight to the
first day of August one thousand six hundred sixty
and five.’

In one parish, the children of the village school
had their primers bound in leaves of parchment,
which led to the discovery of the practice of the
parish clerk and schoolmaster of the day, who

* See the Antiguary, 1880, vol. i., p. 20, and Notes and
Queries, 6th series, passim.

6 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

favoured certain ‘goodies’ of the village by giving
them the parchment leaves for wrapping their
knitting-pins and in the Report of the House
of Commons Committee, in 1835, it is recorded
how one sporting parson cut his parchment leaves
into labels for the game which he sent to his friends.
In another parish, the register was wanting on the
accession of a new vicar, who found that it had
been thrown into the village pond during a parish
dispute ; and there is a tradition handed down
that the wife of some parson, rector or curate of
Dean, being angry with her husband, revenged
herself, as she thought, upon him, but in reality
on poor posterity, by throwing a register-book or
books into the fire.

But how registers should have, occasionally,
come to be sold’ has been a puzzle to many
antiquaries. Thus, the register of Shackerstone,
which extends from the year 1558 to the year
1630, is in the Bodleian Library. It was purchased
from a gentleman at Beverley about March, 1873,
but how it found its way into Yorkshire does not
appear.“ The parish register of Somerby, extend-
ing from 1601 to 1715, is preserved in the British
Museum. It was purchased in April, 1862, from
Mr. C. Devon, but how it came into his possession
is not told. According to the Fournal of the
British Archeological Association (for March,
1882), the register of Papworth-Everard, Cam-
bridgeshire, 1565-1692, was also acquired by the

* See Burn, ‘ History of Parish Registers,’ 1862, pp. 46, 47.
See Notes and Queries, 6th series, vol. v., p. 331.

Introduction. 7

British Museum. Many similar instances might
be quoted of registers having been purchased ; the
register of Stevington and part of that of Nuthurst
being in the British Museum. The register of
marriages, 1662-72, of another Cambridgeshire
parish, St. Mary’s, Whittlesey, also fell by purchase
into the hands of an antiquarian bookseller, who
returned it to the parish. The register of North
Elmham, from 1538 to 1631, was taken from the
parish chest some years ago, and was afterwards
purchased by Mr. Robert Fitch, who restored it to
the parish on August 5, 1861.

And, it may be remembered, there was sold at
Messrs. Puttick’s auction-room, on April 14, 1860,
‘The Original Register of Christenings, Mar-
riages, and Burials of the Parish of Kingston-upon-
Thames, from June, 15413, to December, 1556.’ In
the middle of the volume might be seen this entry :
‘ Mem.—That I, John Bartlett, Clerke, entrynge
to be Curate of thys parishe of Kynston-upon-
Wemyss, begani myne entrans the 29 day of
September, AD. 1547, to kepe ye boke accordynge
to the ordeynance sett forth for chrystenynges,
weddynges and bureynges.’

The registers did not wholly escape the sad
effects of the ravages of war; thus, the earlier
register of Lassington, Gloucestershire, contains
this entry : ‘The old Register Bookes belonging
to the Parish of Lassington were embezzled and
lost in the late times of confusion, criminell divisions,
and unhappy warrs ; and the leaves of the parish
register of Wimpole, Cambridgeshire, containing
the entries from 1604 to the end of 1616 were

8 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

torn out during the civil wars by the Parliamentary
soldiers ; and the following memorandum is found
in the register of Tarporley, Cheshire, in explana-
tion of a break in the entries from 1643 to 1648 :
‘This Intermission hapned by reason of the
Great Wars obliterating memorials, wasting for-
tunes, and slaughtering persons of all sorts,’

© .
Another register remarks that nothing could be

entered during the Civil Wars, ‘as meteace
minister nor people could quietly stay at home for
one party or the others and the fepisten jan
Rotherby thus notices the disturbed state of the
country in the time of Charles I.: ‘1643, Bellum!
1644, Bellum! Interruption, Persecution! . .
Sequestration by John Mussen Yeoman and John
Yates Taylor! 1649, 1650, 1651, 1652. ange
1654, Sequestration! Thomas Silverwood in-
truder.’

Similar entries occur in the register of St. Mary’s,
Beverley. Under June 30, 1643, i 19 SLEJ
‘Our great scrimage in Beverley, and God gave
us the victory at that tyme, ever blessed be
God; and the dangers of war on every side
caused the parson to exclaim, July 30, 1643:

‘ All our lives now at ye stake,
Lord deliver us, for Christ His sake.’

Paul Church, Cornwall, was burnt by the Spaniards
in the year 1595, and the registers prior to that event
were destroyed. Indeed, the registers generally
seem to have hada rough time; and taking also into
account the many other vicissitudes to which they
were exposed, it 1s a matter of congratulation that

Introduction. 9

they have survived as well as they have. Another
reason for the registers not being kept is given in
a memorandum in the Loughborough register :
< Heare is to be noted and remembered that from
the 10 day of April in Anno 1554 there was no
Register keepte, by reason of the alteration of
Religion and often chaunginge of Priests in those
times and yeares, until the first yeare of the raigne
of our Soveraigne Ladie the Queen’s Majesty
Elizabeth by the Grace of God, Queen of England,
Fraunce and Ireland, Deena s: of the Faith, rae
until the yeare.of God, 1558.’

Although, it is true, many registers have been
destroyed owing to causes over which their custodians
had no control, yet it is only too apparent that
culpable negligence and indifference have had a
large share in bringing about the present lament-
able result. A curious instance of this kind is
given by Coventry, ‘On Evidence’ (1832, p. 49) :
dan a case just laid before the writer, it is stated
that the parson’ S greyhound had made her nest in
the chest containing the parish registers, and that,
as the reverend gentleman had a greater affection
for the progeny of his companion than the off-
spring of his parishioners, the requisite registers
of baptism, etc., had become obliterated and
partially destroyed.’ ihe eee registers of a
parish in Kent have been lost, ‘ having been kept
at a public-house, to be shown, as they contained
some curious entries as to tythes ; whereas in
another we are informed that the clerk employed
the leaves of the parish records, amongst other
purposes, for ‘singeing a goose.’

10 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

But although many parsons may allow the
registers to remain in the custody of the parish
clerks, the difficulties which may ensue from this
practice are illustrated im the case of Anum@ell
v. Fowler :

‘A witness on the trial stated that he went to
K. for the purpose of comparing a certificate of
burial with the parish register, and was directed
to the clerk’s house, and there saw a person who
said he was parish clerk, and who produced to
him a book containing entries of burials with
which he compared the certificate : Held that as
Stat. 52 George Ill, €. 150, direc menes
registers to be kept by the clergyman, and as no
explanation was given of the book beme im
possession of the clerk, it had not been produced
from the proper custody, and that the evidence
was inadmissible.’

The cases, too, of erasure ‘and interpolations
which are of frequent occurrence, not only cause
the defeat of justice, but in numerous instances
such mutilations have been done for fraudulent
purposes. As Lord Eldon once remarked: ‘Those
persons who might not have had their attention
particularly directed to the subject could form but
little idea of the enormous sums which were
annually dependent, and the succession to which
entirely depended upon the accuracy of the parish
registers. He had lately been in communication
with a gentleman who was for some years Rector
of Sandon, in the county of Stafford, and who
stated that during his period of incumbency—
extending only over fifteen years—sums exceeding

Introduction. II

£40,000—the parish containing only about 600
inhabitants—were dependent upon the accuracy of
the parish registers, and many persons who had
succeeded to these large sums of money were
persons in the humblest sphere of life. And Lord
Chief Justice Best was of the same opinion: ‘ All
the property in this country, or a large part of it,
depends on registers.’ In the Angel case, where
something like a million sterling was at stake,
Baron Alderson said in ‘ Walker v. Beauchamp,’
Siete was an entry of Hfarrict Angel in the
original register which was alleged to be forged,
as the name of Mary Ann Angel was in the copy
of the Bishop’s registry, and the labouring man
who had altered in the parish book Mary Ann
Angel to Harriet Angel was discomfited by the
evidence of the Bishop’s transcript. Some of the
registers, it is said,* ‘produced in support of the
claim to the Barony of Chandos presented very
suspicious appearances. In the register of St.
Michael's, Harbledown, a large blot appeared upon
the entry of the baptism of the second son of John
Bridges and Maria his wife in the year 1606,
but enough was left to show it had been Edward,
the son of John. The case of the claimant turned
upon this Edward. There appeared to be recent
mutilations of the registers, and interpolations were
suspected to have been made in the Archbishop’s
duplicates.’ A case was tried in the Court of
Common Pleas, involving a fortune of £100,000,
between parties of the name of Oldham, in which
‘in the register sent to the Bishop's registry two

* Hubback, ‘On Evidence,’ 1884 p. 486.

12 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

persons were stated to have been married on a
particular day, but in the parish register there seemed
to have been an erasure in the exact place corre-
sponding with the entry of the marriage in the copy.’

The Huntingdon peerage case was sorely per-
plexing because many leaves from the books of
Christchurch, Hants, had been used by a curate’s
wife to line kettle-holders. There is the case of Miss
Chudleigh, who, for an iniquitous purpose, wished
to conceal her marriage with Lieutenant Hervey.
Accompanied by a female friend, she made a visit
to Laniston, where the marriage had taken place,
and desired to see the register; whilst her friend
engaged the attention of the parish clerk, she cut
out the page containing the marriage entry, and
with that important document returned to London.
By a strange irony of fate, the Lieutenant became
Earl of Bristol. To be plain Mrs. Hervey was
one thing, to be Countess of Bristol another.
The lady, however, was equal to the emergency,
she took another journey to Laniston, and by the
assistance of an attorney, and a bribe to the parish
clerk, she got the abstracted leaf reinserted in its
proper place in the register. In the Leigh peerage
case, in like manner, a baptism which had been
expunged from the parish books of Wigan was
found in the Bishops transcript, and by its
presence decided the suit.

In the registers of St. Peter’s, Cornhill, under
June 25, 1673, this entry occurs: <OSmuna
Mordaunt, son of John Lord Mordaunt of Ful-
ham, Midd*., and Mary Bulger of Lurgan, Na
Gorey in Ireland, were married this day.’ In

Introduction. Bg

respect of this entry there is preserved in the
register a letter from Sir John Page Wood, Bart.,
Rector of St. Peter’s, dated November 30, 1829,
in which he says: ‘ On minutely investigating the
register of marriage of one Osmond Mordaunt
with Mary Bulger, dated 1673, I am clearly of
opinion that the said entry of marriage is a gross
and clumsy forgery. My opinion is formed on the
discrepancies which exist between the said entry
and those of the same period before and after it.
Its handwriting is evidently more modern than
those near it; it is not entered like the others,
with a specification as to the ceremony’s having
been performed by the authority of banns or
license ; the parchment it is written on is thinner
in substance than the rest of the book, as if an
erasure had been made. ‘The entry is made at the
bottom of the page, and there is no signature
thereon, either of incumbent or churchwarden,
which occurs in every page of that period.” A
edigree is also given, drawn up by some member
of the Heralds’ College, by which it appears that
Osmond Mordaunt was not more than eighteen
years old in 1677, and hence would only have
been fourteen at the time of this reputed marriage.
It may be added that in the baptisms under
June 29, 1674, is this entry : Eeter, the Son of
Osmund and Mary. But it is ina different hand-
writing to the other entries, is on the last line at
the bottom of the page, and has — been
inserted after the page had been signed ‘ Will
Beveridge,’ as one of the figures of the date crosses
that signature, and in every other page a small

14 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

space is left between the last entry and his
signature.

In the abstract of the returns, printed by
authority of Parliament in the year 1833, relative
to the number of volumes, dates, and state of
preservation of the registers, down to the year
1812, then in possession of the parish priest, some
very interesting facts were given on this point, and
the incumbent of Chickerell thus wrote : ‘I have
minutely examined the registers of this parish, and
hope there are no others in the kingdom in which
so little confidence should be placed. There are
only two old books, one of parchment, the other of
paper, the former sadly mutilated and interpolated,
the latter so defective that during my incumbency
of one year many certificates have been requested
to no purpose, for want of entries. The omissions,
I suspect, may be attributed to carelessness ; the
abuses, to frauds which have been committed on
the lord of the manor in favour of the copy-
holders ; but to particularize all of them would
be a very unprofitable work.’ Another parson,
writing at the same period, tells how the church
of Pinner, Middlesex, was broken open, and part
of the registers destroyed; and of Berwick,
Sussex, it is recorded that ‘a register of baptisms
[was] taken to Peasmarsh by the former minister,
which has never been recovered,’ and a similar cause.
for the absence of the register of Althorpe,
Lincolnshire, is given: ‘There are two register
books of earlier date, which were taken away by
the Archdeacon in the year 1824.’

It is impossible to say, too, how many a register

Introduction. 15

may have fallen a prey to damp and other ravages
of time, as well as to religious and political
troubles. The early registers of Huish-Champ-
flower, for instance, are described ‘as being
mutilated and illegible, occasioned by a storm
unroofing the church and wetting the contents of
the parish chest’; and the return for Belstone
Church, Devonshire, runs thus : ‘ There are several
registers, the earliest dated 1552, but so irregular
and damaged that no correct account can be given ;
about twenty years ago some of the register-books
were burnt.’ But occasionally a careful Vicar, as
we learn from this injunction in the parish of
Rodmarton, took care to keep the register from
getting damp: ‘If ye will have this book last,
bee sure to aire it att the fire or in the sunne three
or foure times a year, els it will grow dankish and
rott ; therefore look to it. It will not be amisse,
when you find it dankish, to wipe over the leaves
with a dry woollen cloath. This place is very
much subject to dankishness; therefore, I say,
look to it.’

Speaking of fire, it seems that many registers
owe their destruction to this cause, that of West
Lulworth, Dorset, having been burnt in the year
1780. At St. Bees, a fire broke out one Sunday
morning in 1868, when some of the registers were
destroyed, and the returns already quoted tell how
‘the earlier registers of Little Thornham, Suffolk,
were burnt in a fire which consumed the parsonage-
house of a neighbouring parish.’ One can only
regret that an old usage in force at Spitalfields is
not equally binding in other parishes. The follow-

16 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

ing statement was made in the year 1867, when
an appeal was made by the churchwardens, owing
to the danger to which the registers of that parish
were for a long series of years subjected : ‘ By one
of the canons governing ecclesiastical affairs, the
churchwardens are bound to provide an iron chest
in which to preserve the registers of baptisms,
marriages, and burials, and until last summer it
was on all hands believed that Spitalfields Church
was supplied with a chest of the proper character.
During the recent. restoration, it was discovered
that the supposed iron register-chest was a large
stone box with iron doors; and, if it had ever
been subjected to the action of fire, there is no
doubt that the extremely valuable and interesting
registers of this parish from its creation in 1728
would have inevitably been destroyed.’ The
register-chest referred to was probably put up
during the erection of the church, and was entirely
covered with oak framing corresponding with the
oak partitioning in the building.

It is a matter of satisfaction, however, to know
that at last the value of these volumes of social
and domestic history has been realized, and that
in most parishes they are now carefully preserved
as heirlooms of the past. The Harleian Society,
also, taking into account the genealogical interest
attaching to them, has undertaken their publica-
tion, and already the registers of certain City
parishes have been given to the world, and thus
permanently preserved for all generations to come.
But, unfortunately, some of the parish registers
which have been printed by private individuals

EE Ee ee hee

Introduction. 17

have not been published in their entirety, but only
such extracts as were, in the opinion of the editor,
worthy of note. As records of genealogical and
historical value, all such imperfect publications
are of comparatively little worth, and are interest-
ing only so far as they illustrate the original
documents.

It may be well here to note that the first orders
for the provision of parochial registers date from
the year 1538, and were rendered necessary in
consequence of the dissolution of the religious
houses and the cessation of their registers. The
first was issued by the Vicar-General Cromwell,
in the thirtieth year of Henry VII., and this order
was continued by fresh injunctions in the succeed-
ing reigns of Edward VI., Elizabeth, and James I.
During the confusion which existed in the reign
of Charles I., parish registers were greatly neg-
lected, and were for the first time regulated by
Act of Parliament. And on Jan. 3, 1644-45 an
ordinance was made that ‘a fair register book of
velim’ should be provided in every parish, and that
the names of all children baptized, and the time of
their birth, and also the names of all persons
married and buried, should be set down therein
by the minister. During the Commonwealth, the
system of leaving parochial registration to the
clergy seems to have failed. Parliament again
interfered, and registrars were appointed. At the
Restoration, the charge of keeping the registers
again devolved on the clergy, and has continued a
part of their duty ever since.

Nothing appears to have be2n done with regard

2

18 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

to the parish registers in the reign of James II. ;
but in that of William MI., in consequence of a
duty being imposed on the various entries, the
negligent and careless clergy were, for the first
time, exposed to the terror of the commun
informer. Many of the registers, therefore, from
this time seem to have been better kept, but as a
great number of the clergy were not fully aware
of the penalties to which they were subject through
non-compliance with the law, in the fourth year of
Queen Anne’s reign an Act of Indemnity was
found necessary.

In the year 1753 was passed the famous
Marriage Act, called Lord Hardwicke’s Act, still
in force. By this Act, any person convicted of
tampering with or destroying any register of
marriage was to be deemed guilty of felony
without benefit of clergy. In the year 1783 the
Stamp Act was passed, which levied a tax upon
every entry in the parish register, but it met with
such opposition that it was repealed in the year
1794. By this Act the rich and poor were taxed
alike, and the parson was placed in the invidious
and unpopular light of a tax-gatherer. As the
poor were often either unable or unwilling to
pay the tax imposed upon them, the clergyman
not unfrequently paid it out of his own pocket
rather than run the risk of incurring the ill-will
of his parishioners. No change of any material
importance took place until the year 1812, when
an Act, commonly known as Rose’s Act, was
passed for ‘the better regulating and preserving
parish and other registers’; and lastly, in the year

Introduction. 19

1836, a very stringent and salutary law was made,
when it was required that henceforth all future
registers should be kept in books specially provided
for that purpose, and ‘according to one uniform
scheme set out in the schedules annexed to the
i (Seg

Since the passing of the Registration Act, in
the year 1836, the value of the parish register as
a public record has greatly diminished. The
registration of births and deaths has superseded,
as far as legal purposes are concerned, that of
baptisms and burials; and every quarter a copy
of the marriages is forwarded by the parson to the
Registrar-General ; one, too, of the well-known
pair of green books, when filled, being likewise
sent to the Registrar-General.

Such, briefly told, is the history of the parish
register, but it is more especially with its contents
that we are concerned, as illustrating in a variety
of ways the manners and customs of former times.
The present printed forms for the several entries
of baptisms, etc., it must be remembered, preclude
the mention of any other particulars, which abound
in the old registers, and must ever be highly
valuable from their miscellaneous character. It
was a frequent custom to insert occurrences of a
memorable or historical nature ; and, as might be
expected, highly curious as well as quaint are
many of these entries. When, as sometimes
happened, the parson was of a witty turn of mind,
the entries almost verge on the ludicrous and
grotesque ; and again, from the occasional entries
made in a few pithy words of Latin, the refined

R=

20 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

and scholarly taste of the parson is shown. But
it is not to be supposed that, in a succession of
parsons, every one would be of the same turn of
mind, and eq: Hy interested in furnishing material
for the register. Thus, whereas one parson would
take considerable pains to furnish items of infor-
mation respecting passing events, another would
be content to make the necessary entries without
any such” additions. And in seme cases ile
parson even failed to make the requisite entries
in his registers, or even to take cane “ef Penase
which were already made. A respect for antiquity,
and for the value of history, is not innate in every-
body ; and hence many a register has either been
carelessly kept or indifferently supplied with
information. An absence of ordinary discretion
on the part of the parson has occasionally en-
dangered the parish register. Not many years
ago, for instance, a literary man wrote to a country
clergyman—to whom he was a stranger—asking if
he would examine his parish register for a purpose
connected with a remote date. A fortnight elapsed
without any reply being received, and the student
was beginning to despair, when, to his surprise, he
received a parcel by rail, with a letter from the
clergyman, who stated that he had forwarded the
register ‘for the personal examination of the
inquirer, thinking he had better look himself for
what he wanted.’

Turning to the registers themselves, many of
those in London parishes—reaching back to a
remote period—have been admirably kept, the
entries being clear, and tolerably full in the first

Introduction. 21

instance, while the books themselves are splendidly
preserved. The register of Marylebone is a most
voluminous affair, and, like that of Limehouse, is
a model of good order. Stepney, which has a
register going back farther than simehouse, is
another commendable example, that-of St. Martin’s-
in-the-Fields being equally good. Most of our
City churches, too, have full and fair registers,
the evil, we are told, of defective and badly kept
registers being most noteworthy in our rural
parishes. At the same time, despite innumerable
mischances which have, at one time or another,
befallen the parish registers, they represent a con-
siderable amount of documentary evidence, not to
be replaced, relating to the obscure past. Indeed,
whilst invaluable as genealogical records in con-
nection with the rights of property and the
assumption of titles, they further afford us an
insight into the social life of our forefathers not
otherwise obtainable.

And, taking into account the value of the
parish register, it is highly desirable, as it has been
so often urged, that a law should be passed en-
forcing its future safe government in some public
office, as exists in Scotland. When a system of
registration was introduced into Scotland by the
ieee, rain Vict: c 80, “An Act to provide
for the better Registration of Births, Deaths, and
Marriages in Scotland, passed August 7, 1854,
old parochial registers were ordered to be trans-
mitted to the Registrar-General for preservation
in the General Registry Office at Edinburgh.

Very many of the present registers, too, are

22 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

Pinne of the originals, which accounts for the
same handwriting. The old parish register of
Luddenham, near Faversham, for instance, con-
sists of two volumes now bound together; the
first entry running thus:

< Luddenham.—The register following is truly
copyed out of the old Register Booke of Ludden-
ham, and conferred together, nothing added or
left out that concerneth the Record of Baptysings,
buryalls, marriages or other thing pertaining to
the Church or parish, By me, Peter Jackson,
Glerke, Rect. Ecoe kudi auger

But this system of transcription gave rise to a
ludicrous notion of clerical longevity. “The parson
signed the copies, and these sometimes extended
over eighty or ninety years, during which time it
has been gravely asserted the signer’s life extended.

It should further be added that the appoint-
ment of a registrar has oftentimes been duly
notified in the parish register, as in the case of the
arish of Leyland, where we find this memorandum
on the fly-leaf:

‘ These are to certifie all whom it may concerne
that uppon ellection made by the Inhabitants of y°
P’rish of Leyland in the County of Lanc uppon
Thomas Walker of Leyland aforesaid Yeoman to
bee Register for their said parish of Leyland accord-
inge to the Acte [of Parliament] of the 24th of
August last past. I doe therefore allow of him the
said Thomas Walker to be Register for the said
parish and have according to the terme of the
said Act administered the oath of a Register to

Introduction. 2A

him and likewise delivered into the hands of the
said Thomas Walker the old Register Book
(belonging to the said Parish) bearing date from
nie? 7th of Aprill 1538 to the 3rd of Aprill 1597.
In testimony whereof I have hereunder written
my hand the 22nd day of September 165 3.

‘ (Signed) EpwarbeE Roginsouwn.’

It appears that Thomas Walker died on Decem-
Beg 7) OS. which explains the next memo-
randum :

‘Whereas y° above said Thomas Walker being
deceased and y® parish of Leyland being void of a
Register y Inhabitants of yS said parish or ys
major part of y°™ have att a Gen’all Meeting by a
Certificate under y<< hands ellected and chosen
Mr. William Rothwell yeir minister to bee
Register of y® parish aforesaid with a provisoe yat
hee shall relinquish itt when y® parish or y° greater
part yereof shall think fitt to conferr itt upon y°
Schoole[master]. These are therefore to certifie
all whom it may concerne that y® said Mr. Roth-
well comeing before mee one of y° Justices of
Peace for y® said Countie of Lanc" and tendered
ye said Certificate I have allowed of him to be
Register for ye said parish and have tendered and
given him ye oth of A Register according to an
Act of Parliam* of y 24th August 1653 in y%
case provided, and hath also deliv’ to the safe
keepeing of y° said Mr. Rothwell ye old Register
above mentioned.

‘Given under my hand att Buckshaw the 25th
Januarie, 1656.’

24 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

So far the parson seems to have kept in favour
with his parishioners, but according to the story
given in Walker’s ‘ Sufferings of the Clergy,’ he
had to endure much persecution and hardship
between this date and that of the Restoration.

Hence the further memorandum :

‘Whereas Mr. Rothwell the late Register being
displaced and y® said parishioners of Leyland
meeteing att the P’rish Church of Leyland upon
the first day of May 1656 the major part then
p’sent did ellecte and choose Robert Abbott of
Leyland above-said yeoman to bee for the tyme
p'sent Register for the said p’rish and to execute
that office till the parish with y® approbacon
of the next Justice of peace should thinke fitt
to conferr y® said office upon some other P’son.
These are therefore to certifie all whom it may
concerne that y* said Robert Abbott comeing that
day before mee one of the justices of y® peace for
y° said Countie I have approved and allowed of
him and hath administered ye oath of a Register
to him accordinge to y® Acte of Parliam* in that
case provided and also hath deliu’ed into his safe
keeping the old Register Book menconed in the
first Certificate on y® other side. Given under my
hand att Buckshaw y° 2nd May 1656.

‘Epwarp Rosinsoun,’

But it will be seen in an ensuing chapter that
Mr. Rothwell’s case was far from being an isolated

one, further instances having been given in other
registers,

Ghee Ek T.

PARISH LIFE:

HE parish life of one or two centuries ago

was very different from what it is at the
present day. Time has wrought many changes:
old customs have passed away, railways have
linked one village with another, and country life
has gradually assimilated itself in tone and char-
acter with the practices and habits of neighbouring
towns. As formerly, the rural parish is no longer
an isolated little community ; and hence it has
thrown off, from year to year, those characteristics
of habit and custom which once gave it an indi-
viduality of its own. But, happily, many of these
traits of parish life have been preserved in local
documents—such as the parochial register-—which
otherwise would have perished and been lost to
posterity.

An interesting entry relating to the Poor Laws
of Edward VI. and 5 Elizabeth occurs in the
transcript of the register of St. Mary Magdalene,
Canterbury, for the year 1565, where, added to

26 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

the burial on March 6 of ‘Israel Raynolds s. of
James Raynolds’,’ this note is given: ‘Sol. yin =
and in the transcript of St. George’s, Canterbury,
under 1566, we find that the names Ou aac
collectors for the poor were Christopher Lewys
and Thomas Kyng, and that they collected four-
pence. ‘It is hardly necessary; widitess (hie
Meadows Cowper,* ‘to say that so long as the
monasteries stood there was no need and no
thought of a Poor Law; but when they were
suppressed, the ugly fact stared men in the face
that there were countless poor, and nene to
provide for them.’ An attempt was made to meet
the difficulty, and in the reign of Elizabeth an
Act was passed ‘touching relieving poor and im-
potent persons.’ The Act runs thus: (ite paen
and impotent persons of every parish shall be
relieved of that which every person will of their
charity give weekly : and the same relief shall be
gathered in every parish by collectors assigned,
and weekly distributed to the poor; for none of
them shall openly go or sit begging. And if any
parishioner shall obstinately refuse to pay reason-
ably toward the relief of the said poor, or shall
discourage others ; then the Justices of the Peace
Fe lave Quarter Sers may tax him to a reasonable
weekly sum; which, if he refuses to pay, they
may commit him to prison.’

And, as Mr. Cowper adds, Christopher Lewys
and Thomas Kyng were the ‘collectors assigned,’
and if the amount «wija. represents the result of a
year’s collection, we need not be surprised that

* «Registers of St. George’s, Canterbury,’ Introduction, v, vi.

"Porish Lre: 27

other Poor Laws were soon required to prevent
the people from dying of starvation.’

But the condition of many a country parish in
the seventeenth century was lamentable owing to
those days of contest and confusion. As one of
the many instances of the wretched state of parish
life at this period, a writer in the ‘Sussex Arche-
oomai Collections > (iv. 259) mentions the
condition of Wivelsfield. It appears ‘the tithes,
both great and small, belonged to a Mr. More, of
Morehouse, whose predecessors had received them
by grant from the Crown, on the dissolution of
the Monastery of Lewes, previous to which the
church had been supplied by a lay-reader, who
sometimes on a holiday came over to read a
homily. During the time of the Rebellion and
the Protectorate, the parish, which before had been
supplied by students provided by the family of
Mi More, had been filled successively by a
Presbyterian jack-maker, a drummer, and a malt-
man.’ A memorandum in Mayfield register,
made by the parson, dated 1646, and signed by
him, tells much the same tale:

‘I being called upon to the Assembly of Divines,
did offer to give up all the tithes due from the
parishioners for the maintenance of a minister, but
through the backwardness of many in not paying
their dues, and it may be by the negligence of some
in not being active to procure a fit man for the
place, and to give him encouragement, there was
no constant minister for some time, and afterwards
divers changes, so that the register was neglected
for divers years.’

28 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

Entries of this kind are of frequent occurrence,
and show under what disadvantages parish life
was passed. A memorandum in the register of
Kibworth, Leicestershire, dated 1641, runs thus:
‘Know all men that the reason why little or
nothing is registered from this year 1641 until
the year 1649, was the Civil Wars between
Charles and his Parliament, which put all into a
confusion till then; and neither minister nor
people could quietly stay at home for one party
or the other.’ Indeed, taking into consideration
the many difficulties at this period of our history
that attended the keeping of the parish registers,
it is surprising that they did not fare far worse in
such a time of turmoil.

But turning from the political surroundings of
parish life, it would seem that occasionally disputes,
as at the present day, were the cause of much
vexatious litigation; and whilst the parson was
struggling with more or less success against the
difficulties of his calling, much bitterness and ill-
feeling were often caused by such unhappy dis-
sensions, Thus, it appears that the old register of
the parish of St. Olave, Chester, was lost in a suit
between Hugh Harvey and the parishioners in
the year 1666; and a memorandum carefully
inserted in the parish register of Hillingdon, under
the date of December 30, 1670, gives an interest-
ing account of a lawsuit which arose as to
what parish a certain house belonged. It runs
thus :

‘Elizabeth, the daughter of John Franklin and
Grace his wife, at y° house near Ikenham belong-

Parish Life. 29

ing to this parish, by leave first derived, was
christened there, which house in the time of my
immediate Predecessor, Mr. Bourne, occasioned a
very great suit between the two Towns, when at
last after a great deal of money spent, it was
adjudged to belong to Hillingdon, and so hath
been adjudged ever since, without dispute ; and
to prevent any for time to come, this memoriall 1s
now registered.’

Four years later we find another entry—this
‘time relating to a burial difficulty—between the
same two parishes: Jana 18th, 1674. The wife
of — Beddifont marr at Ikenham and there, by
leave first obtained, buried ; and not by any just
right to burie there, as formerly pretended, till it
was determined by law after a costly and tedious
suit betwixt the two Townes. Salvo itaque in
omnibus jure exit sus* Hillingdoniensis.’ In
many cases it would seem that boundary parish
lines were ill-defined, which gave rise to much
dispute ; and, as in the case just quoted, there
was oftentimes in a parish an unwritten law, the
real existence of which, when questioned by some
captious or aggrieved parishioner, involved an
expensive lawsuit.

In the Crosby-on-Eden registers there is a
quaint entry which tells its own tale, and from
which it would seem that the parishioners of
Crosby desired to place on record their triumph
over their neighbours of Brampton :

‘Whereas the Churchwardens and Overseers of
ye Poor for ye p* of Crosby ypon Eden made

* Probably the tithe pig.

30 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

their complaint to the worshipful John Aglionby
and Richard Goodman Esq™ two of her Majtes
Justices of the Peace for this County whereof one
of ye corum (sic) That Ales” Rickson wite ay
Thomas Pickson came lately to live in the said
p of Crosby not having gained a legale settle-
ment there according to the Laws in that case
made and provided nor produced a certificate to
them owning her to be settled elsewhere And
that the said M= Pickson is likely to become
chargeable to y° said pt of Crosby whereupon
examination thereof they the said Justices did
adjudge the same to be true and the last place of
her settlement was in Brampton pe: in this
County They yS said Justices by warrant unto
their hands and seals dated the third day of April
Anno Dom 1714.did require the said Church=
wardens of the p's? of Crosby to convey the said
Ales Pickson from Crosby to the said p= of
Brampton thereby also requiring the Church-
wardens and Overseers of ye p's? of Brampton to
receive her as an inhabitant there by virtue of
which Order the said Churchwardens and Overseers
of Crosby did convey the said Ales Pickson to y®
Churchwardens of Brampton aforesaid and the
said Churchwardens of Brampton thinking them-
selves grievously oppressed by the said Order
appealed to this Quarter Sessions from the said
Order whereupon reading the said Order and upon
hearing Counsel on the side of the Churchwardens
of Crosby and noo defence being made by the
Churchwardens of Brampton notwithstanding due
notice given to them this Court doth adjudge the

Parish Life. a1

Order soo made by the said Justices to be confirmed
and it is hereby confirmed. Dated the day and
year aforesaid.’

Any infringement of parish rights seems to
have been most obstinately resented, and the
following interesting minute of a meeting —speci-
ally convened to consider what steps should be
taken to uphold certain privileges belonging to
the parish—is written upon a flyleaf at the com-
mencement of one of the registers of SS. Peter and
Paul, Mitcham :

‘It is this day agreed upon by the Inhabitants
above named in the behalfe of the rest of the
Inhabitants that the common fields shall be layd
open so soon as all the corne of the said fields
shall be carried out. And then and not before
it shall be lawfull for the said Inhabitants that
have been accustomed and to have benefitt of the
common of the said field to put in their cattle
until St. Luke Day following, and not after any
sheepe or other cattle to be suffered there, but if
any be taken they are to be put in the pound or
to be trespassers upon paine for every horse six-
pence, every cowe four pence, and every hogg
threepence, and every sheepe one penny, and for
every horse cowe hogg or sheepe that shall be
taken in the same field after our Lady Day to
double the said penalty, the benefitt of the said
Pennelty to goe to the field-keeper.

‘And likewise it is agreed upon by the said
Inhabitants that all those who have inclosed any
part of the common ffelds shall take away their
gates that their severall inclosures may be common

32 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

to the fields, and this is agreed and concluded
upon before us whose names are here underwritten,
being required of the Lords of his Majes* most
honb!e Privie Counsell to examine the complaints
of the cottagers in the said parish touching the
said inclosure of the comon fhelds, and whereunto
we have thought fitt to consent unto as that which
we conceive to be right and reasonable—dated at
Mitcham this 14th day of Decemba toom

But things have altered in the interval, for now
the railway divides the common fields into two
parts, being now mostly built over.

Another memorandum of a similar kind is
entered in the register of Whittlesford, Cambridge-
shire, under the year 1635, respecting some land
bequeathed to the town, which is to the followin
effect: ‘Concerning the lands called Cipaiens
lands given to the towne of Wittlesford, we doe
think it fitte that the profits coming of these lands
shall not hereafter be employed towards the pay-
ment of the taske, nor any of the King’s carriage,
but for the com’on town charges where most
neede shall be. And according to the meaninge
of the same gifte it is thus agreed upon at Linton,
at a mectinge the ix of June 16955) Gomes
Henry Smith, Doctor in Divinity, and Michael
Dalton Esq", two of his Maj‘ Justices of the
Peace for this Countie to whom this matter was
referred by my lorde Cheife Justice, and to the
end that there might be from henceforth a finale
quiett between the said Inhabitants, we think it
fitting, & it is our order that his Order and

* See the Reiigdary, vols xviii pps tie 12

Barish Life. RR

agreement be entered into the Church booke and
the towne booke. And in them bothe by all the
present feoffees and other the cheife Inhabitants
subscribed under every one of their hands. Dated
cois ro" June, 1625.’

Many memoranda of this kind occur in the
parish registers, and they are interesting as show-
ing that our forefathers were equally jealous of
what they considered their public rights, and were
at all times ready to resist any arbitrary or unjust
curtailment of them—an uncompromising attitude
which even the parson himself was prepared to
maintain, as may be gathered from an entry made
m tbe seeister of Erede Abington, where ‘the
rights of the Vicaridge’ are very minutely re-
cordedh a, Wi Colbatch, who compiled the
anmede makina this conclusion: ‘Cursed is he
that removeth his neighbour’s landmark.’

But it was not the right of property only which
occasionally gave rise to a parish broil, for the
administration of the poor-law seems at times to
have exercised the mind of the rural parishioner.
In the year 1674, it appears from an entry that
there was paid at Eastbourne toa certain ‘J. Russell,
for keeping Mary Peeper, two weeks and three
days, six shillings; to Goody Russell, for laying
her out, one shilling; disbursed for bread and
beer at her funeral, two shillings and twopence.’
These items when published created a widespread
feeling of dissatisfaction, and soon afterwards the
parishioners held a meeting in the vestry, and
‘declared that great abuses in the administration
of the poor-law had taken place, and as a mark

3

34 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

of their displeasure a resolution was passed that
all recipients of relief should wear a badge upon
the right side of their upper garment, and if the
overseer relieved any other than these, no allow-
ance was to be made to him for thein accoumtes
That this was not an isolated case is evident from
a memorandum in Wadhurst register, dated 1630,
relating to the misappropriation of certain funds
specially intended for the poor:

‘Whereas Mr. Thomas Whitefield, of Worth, in
the County of Surrey, Esquire, being well affected
to the parish of Wadhurst, gave, besides the three
almshouses and twelve cordes of woode, ten poundes
by the yeare, the said ten pounds was, in 1633,
employed to the payment of the general sesse of the
poor, whereby the said money given to be disposed
to the maintenance of the poor was diverted from
the right ends, and served to abate the charge of
the rich assessed in the said sesse. Whereupon
John Hatley, Vicar of Wadhurst, then one of the
feoffees, opposed this Act as ungodly as unjust ;
and the writings being showed whereby the ten
pounds annuity was conveyghed, it was found
that the said ten pounds was by them to be
disposed to the extended use of the poor, and not
to serve to the abatement of the charge of the
rich. This the above-named John Hatley thought
fit to set down here, forasmuch as he suffered
many foule words for opposing this wrong ; and
lest any ill-disposed person should attempt to do
it hereafter, or any man not knowing the purport
of the conveighance should ignorantly fall into
the ruine of sacrilege.’

* «Sussex Archzological Collections,’ vol. ivo E- 267-

Parish Life. 25

Andin the register of St. Mary-le-Bow, Durham,
an entry informs us that ‘Baron Hilton’s money
was by Richard Baddely and John Simpson
churchwardens for the years 1676-1677 recovered
for the poor of this parish, six pound per annum
which was wrongfully detained from the said poor
by the Mayor and Aldermen of the City of
Durham, and charged eight shillings they drunke
in blew clarett to the poores accompt.’ Boughton
register, again, contains the particulars of the
recovery, in the year 1606, of the Town Land,
which it seems had for the space of sixty years
been wrongfully taken from the parish; and a
memorandum in the register of Hartlepool,
Durham, says that ‘the Collectors for the Royal
Aid Sess in the year 1697 cheated most abomin-
ably the Town of Hartinpoole, gathering the
value of it where it was not due.’

Amongst other financial matters connected with
parish life, it may be noted that one of the statutes
of Elizabeth provided that ‘all parishes within
the Realm of England and Wales shall be charged
to pay weeklie such sume of money towardes the
reliefe of sicke, hurte, and maimed souldiers and
mariners soe as no Parish be rated above the sume
of tenpence, nor under the sume of twopence
weeklie to be paides Accordingly, under the
date December, 1598, particulars are given in
Prestbury register respecting ‘a laye for the poore
and maymed soldyers within the sayd parrishe as
it was augmented by y" or week in december 1598.’
This Act was confirmed by a decree of the Com-
monwealth, passed May 28, 1647, but the amount

32

36 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

collected under its provisions being found inade-
quate—owing to the long continuance of the war
and the consequent increase in the number of
applicants for relief—an increased rate, not to
exceed 2s, 6d. per week from each pariche woe
sanctioned by Parliament August 10, 1647.*

In some parishes it was customary for those
who retained any particular seat in church to pay
so much a year for the benent of the peor im
return for the privilege. In the temerea
Wragby, Yorkshire, there is a memorandum of
an agreement made by Sir Thomas Gargrave,
Knight, the curate, and churchwardens, in the
Wear 1573, wien the concent OF «he parish of
Wragbie, whereby < Cudbart Flemynge, of Sharle-
ston, gentleman, shall have to him and his suc-
cessors, a place in the north side of the Church ot
Wragbie, whereas scole was and at this present is
accustomed (to be) kept, so long as he or they
doe paye, or cause to be payd, yearlie to the poor
of Wragbie, or into the hand of the Collectors, or
Churchwardens for the time appoynted, twelve-
pence, the yere, ther upon the holie dayes to sytt
without any interruption of any person in office or
out of office.’ But such arrangements in after-
years often led to the most unseemly disturbances,
and the abuses which were the outcome of the old
pew system have justly been made the subject of
censure and ridicule in the literature of the past.t

It was also permitted in olden times for persons

* Prestbury Registers, Record Society, 1881, p. xv.
t See Yorkshire Archeological and To ‘poxraphical Journal,

pare alii p gi

Parish Life. 27

in distress, or who had met with accident or misfor-
tune, and required the assistance in a pecuniary
shape of their richer brethren, to obtain from the
Ecclesiastical Court what was popularly termed
‘a brief, or, in other words, a species of authority
to go about begging at any parish church they
might think fit, and thereupon to throw them-
selves upon the bounty of indiscriminate con-
gregations, even at a remote distance. The year
1619 seems to have been remarkable or the
number of persons applying for relief with briefs,
or letters patent. They were issued out of
Chancery on petition, the patent charges and
other costs attending them being very large—a
circumstance, it has been suggested, sufficient to
account for their frequency, as they would be thus
profitable to the royal exchequer and the Chancery
officials. In Burn’s ‘Ecclesiastical Law’ an ex-
ample is given, showing the various charges, the
summary being as follows :

eae de

Collected on £9, 986 briefs (é.¢., copies
sent to various parishes, etc.) - = Gua ig ©
Charges - - - - - - - 230 16 @
280 r6 3

Entries illustrative of this custom are very
numerous, and occasionally are amusing. Thus,
in Kingston Register, under February 24, 1571,
this memorandum occurs: ‘Sonday was here two
women, the mother and daughter out of Ireland,
she called Elynor Salve to gather upon the deathe
of her howsbande a gentleman slayne amongst

38 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

the Wylde Iryshe being Captaine of Gallyglasses,
and gathered xviij?’; and on August 20, ‘there
were here two men being robbed on the sea.’
Loughborough register notices a ‘brief for
rebuilding the Theatre Royal in London,’ and
under July 26, 1690, a memorandum’ 1m ee
register of Springthorpe, Lincolnshire, records
that there was ‘collected for Teignmouth, for loss
by the French landing, firing, and plundering the
said town, two shillings and tenpence.’ ‘These
briefs undoubtedly prove the readiness of our fore-
fathers to give alms, even for objects which
had no local interest Im the yeam noy me
Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire
published extracts from the registers of Orms-
kirk Church, extending from the year 1676 to
the year 1719 inclusive, and one brief noticed was
for a very distant object : oks 12% TOOT eee
lected then in y Parish of Ormes™ fer ya poon
slaves in Sally eight pounds three shillings six-
pence.’ Sally [Sallee] was on the west coast of
Morocco, formerly a stronghold of piracy. And
to give one or two further illustrations, we may
quote the following :
‘1633. For Strasburg in Alsatia, in Germany, Is. 6d.
©1681. For the French Protestants, £1 18s. 6d.

‘1700. For the redemption of Captives: im Hex) ane
Morocco.’— Woodstock.

‘1661. For 100 Protestant Churches in the Dukedome ot
Lithuania, 4s.’—Cheadle.

These briefs are usually written on the fly-leaves
of the registers, the parishes where they occurred
being as numerous as the subjects are varied.

Ranai rfe. 39

Sometimes it appears the collections were made at
the visitations, and occasionally they were paid in
the rates. The practice in course of time, how-
ever, became an abuse, and Pepys under June 30,
1661, makes this entry in his diary: ‘Sunday.
To Church, where we observe the trade of briefs
is come now up to so constant a course every
Sunday, that we resolve to give no more to them.’
iit te year on an Act of Parliament was
passed ‘for the better collecting charity money on
briefs, preventing abuses in relation thereto, and
finally, in the year 1828, another Act was passed
forbidding the reading of briefs in churches.*
The most eventful period in the history of briefs
was when the Civil War broke out, the House of
Commons having taken ‘ precautions against the
royal prerogative being exercised in issuing
briefs to raise money for the supply of the King’s
wants, or for the relief of sufferers in the royal
cause’; and on January 31, 1643, Henry Martin
—afterwards known as the regicide—brought in an
order for inhibiting any collections upon any brief
under the Great Seal. A further order was made
on January 10, 1648, that no collections should
be made on briefs, except such as were issued
under the Great Seal, under direction of both
Houses of Parliament.t

Turning to other payments, we find bound up
with the Prestbury register various memoranda
relating to the affairs of the parish, the first of

* For the origin of briefs, see Staveley’s ‘ History of

Churches,’ 1712, pp. 99-101.
+ ‘Parish Registers,’ R. E. Chester Waters, p. 79.

40 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

which relates to a custom that had existed from
time immemorial with respect to payments for
‘the use and reparacon of the Church of Prest-
burie, and which, as far as cam be @atheneds
appears to have been peculiar to the parish—a ley
or assessment, resembling in some respects the
ordinary church rate, but locally known as serage
or cerage silver, the survival, it has been sug-
gested, of the ‘ wax-money,’ allowed to the Vicar
by the Abbey of St. Werburch, Cheste mkm
accordance with an agreement made at about the
end of the thirteenth, or beginning of the four-
teenth century. After reciting ‘the duties and
laudable customs, as of long tyme have been due
and accustomed to be paid,’ the order sets forth
the apportionment for each township liable, with
the names of those persons who ‘subscrybed did
agree and consent’ thereto, as well for themselves
as the rest of the parish.*

The next entry is a copy of a very interesting
kind, of ‘an old Order taken and of long time used
by the consent of the whole parish of Prestburie,
for the dividing and the better repayringe or
mayntenhinge of the Churchyard.’ It seems that
the residents of each township had been granted
a certain portion of the ground in the churchyard,
which they undertook to keep fenced, and in
order, reserved for their exclusive use—a practice
by no means unusual. Contracts, again, for keep-
ing the church in repair are not unfrequently
recorded in the registers,and an old one, dated 1578,

* «The Register of Prestbury,’ edited by James Croston,
Record Society, 1881 : Introduction, p. xiv.

Parish Lafe. AI

is given in the Wragby register, which is a good illus-
tration of agreements of this kind:

‘It was agreed, upon the xvit! of | No |vemb anno
1578 betwixt the Churchwardens and the rest of the
parish of Wragbie, and Thomas Milner of Wragbie
aforesaid, that he, the said Thomas Milner shall
from the xvit day of November of his own costes
and charges, maintaine, uphould, and keepe, all the
bells within the Churche of Wragbie with hempe,
ether, and greas, with all their furniture belong-
imoet the said bells, as often as need shall
require ; brass and iron, and wood, for yockes and
wheles excepted, whitche is to be found of the
charges of the Parish. And the same belle (?) to
be so repaired by the said Thomas Milner, as is
aforesaid, during the term and space xx" yeare,
yff he the said Thomas Milner do live so long,
and continew within the parish of Wragbie, the
Churchwardens for the time being painge unto the
said Thomas Milner vjs. vijd. everye yeare, that
is to say iljs. 1jd. at Mychelmes, and tijs- id. at
the Nunchation of the blessed Virgin Mary by
even portions,’

Indeed, it seems to have been a popular and
long-standing notion that the fact of any kind
of parish agreement being copied into the register
made it all the more binding on the parties
concerned, but the chief reason for this practice
was, that, if by any accident in after-years a
contract should be either mislaid or lost, a copy
of it could be seen in the register of the parish.
By its being entered, too, in the register, any
business transaction had thereby a public im-

42 Soctal Life as Told by Parish Registers.

portance imparted to it, which made it all the
more binding. Thus, we tind the Wicamaem
Aldingbourne, Sussex, making a note in his register
of the fees for which he was not hable= “ane
Vicarage of Aldingborne is not to pay any pro-
curations to the Archdeacon; neither was the
glebe lands or the tythes belonging fe.e eae
Vicarage ever taxed, within the “memory som
man, to any payments saving in the year 1635, six
shillings and eightpence to the shipping.’
Agreements of this kind were by no means
uncommon, but occasionally they gave rise to future
litigation. At the conclusion of the old register-
book of Kirk-Leatham is an instance of the
valuable efforts and mediation of the Vicar, the
compact agreed upon long remaining in force:

‘Primo die May, Anno Dmni 1622.

< Memorandum.—At the direction of Robert
Weemse, then Vicar of Kirkleatham, for the good
of the whole parish, 1, Nicholas Kildale has
inserted this order hereafter following, to remain
ad perpetuam rei memoriam. For after a long suit
and controversy, which was between Kirkleatham
and Wilton, in the Spirituall Court at York, the
matter by the men of Wilton, Lackenby, and
Laisenby, was drawne into the Court of Wards in
y? minority of Phrediric Cornewallis. And was
brought againe from the said Court of Wards
by ye meanes of y* said Robert Weemse ; and at
last, by y® mutuall consent and assent of the
whole parish, as well of Kirkleatham as Wilton, was
finally ordered as hereinafter is specifyed, which

Pash Exe. 43

order was recorded by the said Robert Weemse,
in ys said Court of Wards, in Michaelmas term
next after y° said order was made.’

The order agreed upon was as follows :

‘Tt is this day agreed by and between y° inhabi-
tants of Kirkleatham cum membris, y* inhabitants of
Wilton cum membris, shall hereafter from time to
time, at their own costs and expenses, build, repaire,
and uphold, and keep in reparations, the north
side of ys Church and steeple of Kirkleatham,
from the middle northward, with stone, lyme,
glasse, iron, timber, and lead ; and in considera-
tion thereof, hereafter be exempted from whiting
or painting of y wal on y“ inside, and from
paueing the ground, and building the stalls w'in
ye said Church, and shall hereafter be freed from
all other charges for or about y° repaire of all bels,
bookes, or any other ornaments belonging unto
y° said Church of Kirkleatham.’

But in the year 1651 the inhabitants of Wilton
refused their portion of the expenses ordered
by this agreement, and when the “parishioners
of Kirkleatham did petition ye worshipfull justices
of peace in an open sessions for relief, it was
decreed that “the inhabitants of Wilton should
either repair their part of the said church, or
show cause to the contrary by appearing before
ye justices of ye peace of this North Riding.” ’
They adopted the latter course, but were ordered
to fulfil their part of the agreement as heretofore.

Not infrequently, too, memoranda of agreements
made with workmen are entered in the parish

44 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

register, concerning sundry repairs arranged for
in the course of the year. In one of the qepiseces
of Aldbrough, Yorkshire, there is a memorandum
as early as the time of James I., which shows that
organs were then in use in this church :

< Mem‘ that the xxi* day of August, Anno Dom.
1617, it was agreed between the Churchwardens and
Inhabitants of the ps of Aldbroughe on theire
p° and George Brownlace of the Cittye of Yorke,
that the said George Brownlace should mend and
repayre the organs at Aldbroughe, fro’ time to
time, when and as often as shall require. And
shall have for his paynes 6s. yearely upon May
daye, and also be pvided of a Worse ace ee
chardge of the pishe fro’ Yorke and home againe.
And also be furnished att the chardge of the pi
with all things needfull for the mendinge and
repayre of them, as also wi meate, drinke, and
lodging during the work,’

And a Vicar of Bitteswell, Leicestershire, entered
in his register a ‘ Table of Customes’ for the benefit
of future parsons and their parishioners, of which `
we subjoin an extract :

‘A Transcription of Customes for all tythings
due to the Vicar of Bitteswell, rates and others, as
have been recorded by Mr. Edw. Duckminton who
was Vicar of the said parish about the year 1630
By me Geo Castell, present Vicar 1665.

‘Imprim. Pro domo 24—that is for the house
1°, for the hearth 1°, and for the garden 4 to be
paid at Easter. For man and wife, offerings 2%,
for servants and children 14 at Easter,’ etc.

At the commencement of the Orton register,

Parish Life. 45

Westmoreland, are given the fourteen names of
‘che swore men Of Ofto’ anno dni 1596,’
after which this memorandum is added, another
interesting relic of parish life in olden times :

“ Inprimis that thes be diligent and careful to see
and provide that the people be . . . and behave
the’selves honestlie . . . feare of God according
to the Holie Word of God and the Good and
wholesome laws of this land. Secondlie to see
that the Churchwardens be careful and diligent
in executinge their office ioyne with thes in sup-
pressinge of sinne and such as behave the’selves
inordinatlie to reprove and rebuke those wh be
found offenders, and if they will not amend to
p’sent the’ to be punished. hird/ie—to se that
the Church and Churchy* be decentlie repaired
and mainteyned. Also we as agreed y" everie
p’sonnis beinge found faultie by the Churchwardens
and p’sented to the sworn me’ shall paie xijd. to
the poor ma’s box. And that whosoever doth not
come p’sent the’selves lawfull warning being given
either of the xij or Churchwardens to the place
appointed shall loose xi(j) to the poore ma’s box
without a sufficient cause to the contrarie whereof
thes are to certifie the rest assembled at...
appointed of their meetinge. Lastly that the
Churchwardes . . . and take the sam forfat .. .
p’sent the offenders.’

The clause following the third admonition is
a little obscure, but the meaning, it has been
suggested, is this: ‘If any person be deemed by
the churchwardens to be guilty of disorderly or
immoral conduct he shall be presented to the court

46 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

of the twelve sworn men—the list given comprises
fourteen names; perhaps the two churchwardens
were included — who shall, if the accused is
unable to clear himself, thereupon inflict a fine of
twelve pence payable to the poor-box, and that if
he fails to attend and answer to the complaint,
being duly summoned either by the twelve or the
churchwardens, or fails to send sufficient excuse
for absence, the same fine shall be imposed.’*

It appears to have been customary in some
parishes to make once a year a list of the in-
habitants of the parish. Such a practice was
observed in the parish of St. Mary Aldermary,
with additional particulars as to their occupation,
religious faith, and the numbers of their respective
families. ‘Two such lists, for the years 1733 and
1734, were transcribed in the parish register, and
these are interesting as illustrating the register
itself, and as furnishing details which do not
appear elsewhere.

* See Cumberland and Westmoreland Antiquarian and
Archeological Society, 1891, vol. xi., pp. 252, 253.

T These lists have been reproduced by Dr. J. L. Chester in
his reprint of ‘The Parish Registers of St. Mary Aldermary,’
1880, pp. 235 and 238.

ms t

VESI

;
Di
1
P
Ë
t
9
a

Cla TER I.
PARSON AND PEOPLE,

HE relations of the parson with his parish-
ioners, unhappily, have not always been of
the most friendly kind—a circumstance, it would
seem, in some cases owing to his having been
appointed i in direct opposition to the wishes of the
people. The register of Staplehurst gives an
account of a certain Rector who was appointed in
this manner:

‘Henricus Kent, Cantab et Socius Collegii Reg"
rector ecclesia parochialis de Staplehurst, insti-
tutus sexto die novembris, 1645, et ejusdem anni
decimo septimo die Nov™ inductus. Hujusdem
Ecclesia possessionem non sine multorum oppo-
sitionibus accepit, sed non - ullorum suffragiis
electus, et suo jure legali sustentatus, per ordinens
parliamenti specialem liberam tandem prædicandi
potestatem habuit. O tempora! O mores!’

But Henry Kent lived long enough to gain not
only the affections of his parishioners, but even
the goodwill of his opponents. In the register of

48 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

East Lavant, some particulars are given respecting
another parson who, too, was regarded as an
intruder, The entry runs thus: «20 Oct. aa
Richard Batsworth was approved of, and sworn to
be a parish minister for the sayd parish, according
to an Act of Parliament in the case made and
provided.” It is further added that ‘he was a
man of low stature, very violent for the rebels,
and a plunderer of the royalists, particularly of
the Morley family. He had some lecagaimesge
great deal of chicanery, though seldom more than
one coat, which for some time he wore the wrong
side out,—its right side was seen only on Sundays
—till it was almost worn out, and then he had a
new one, which he used in the same manner.’

On November 15, 1649, it appears thar Nim
Nalton was chosen ‘by very full and general
consent to be minister of St. Martin’s, Ludgate
Hill, but he did not accept the appointment,
Whereupon it was decided to offer it to Mr.
Warran, minister of Hendon.’ Above this state-
ment in the register are written these not very
complimentary lines:

‘Twas Jeroboam’s practice and his sport
Priests to elect out of the baser sort.’

Another curious memorandum in the register
of Everley, Wilts, dated September 20. rome
describes the appointment of one William Eastman,
commonly called Tinker, by occupation a brass
founder, and his expulsion, on the restoration ot
Charles II., and concludes with these amusing lines :

‘Exit Tinker, let all men henceforth know
A thorn was planted where a vine should grow;

Parson and People 49

Down went St. Paul, Apollos and Cephas,
For silver trumpets here was sounding brass.’

In the year 1642, we find from the Knares-
borough register that on July 5 ‘ Roger Atey was
peaceably inducted into the Vicaridge of Knares-
borough by the presentation of Sir Henry Slingsby,
miner tate an his reads as if in those
troublous times some opposition might have
Beam expected) ‘Water on fhe induction of
Leonard Ash is mentioned in these terms :

‘Leonard Ash Vic. inductus fuit vicessimo
sexto die Augusti Anno Domini 1692. Wee wh*
names are under written did heare Leonard Ash
Viccar of Knaresborough, after his reading divine
service in the said parish church upon the eleventh
day of September 1692, reade the thirty nine
Articles in the aforesaid parish Church and declare
his ful and free assent to the same.’

In many cases, when the parochial clergy
recovered possession of the registers at the
Restoration, one of their first acts was to insert
an entry expressive of their contempt for the
intruding ministers, who had superseded them
during the Protectorate.

Occasionally the censure passed on the parson
for any delinquency on his part has been duly
recorded in the parish register. Thus, the Vicar
of Godalming seems to have got into trouble for
the partial non-fulfilment of his duties. The
register of Godalming is signed at the foot of
each page, from March, 1636, until 1642, by
‘Nico. Andrewes, Vic. de Godalmyn,’ but against
him articles of complaint were presented to

4

50 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

Parliament by certain of his parishioners, from
which it would seem that a limitation in the supply
of sermons was the main charge. The charge,
apparently, was considered satisfactorily proved
against him, for his living was sequestered by
order of Government, and he was imprisoned, and
died, it is said, from the effects of the cruel treat-
ment to which he was subjected. *

Indeed, it would appear from a further memo-
randum of this kind, dated 1615, Thar sie
parishioners of olden times were far more appre-
ciative of sermons than nowadays. To quote
another case: at Pickering, in Yorkshire, a
complaint was made ‘by the inhabitants of the
Parish and Town of Pickering, in the County of
York, that the parsonage, now in possession of
the Bishop of Bristol, Dean of York—it being an
endowment of the said Deanery——such slender care
hath been had by him for the preaching of the
Gospel unto the said parishioners, and giving them
that Christian-like and necessary instruction which
is fitting, as for a long time they scarce had any
sermon at all amongst them. Whereupon their
Lordships were pleased to direct their letters unto
the said Lord Bishop, admonishing and requiring
him to give speedy order for the redress of so
great an inconvenience, and so scandalous to
his Majesty’s most Christian government.t But
receiving answer from his Lordship, that in respect

* See ‘Surrey Archeological Collections,’ vol. ii., Bo 2105
Vol. iv, p. 206.

t Yorkshire Archaslogical and Topographical Fournal, vol. vii.,
pp. 287, 288.

Parson and People. 5i

of the said parsonage, being an impropriation, it is
endowed with a Vicarage, and a Vicar presented
thereunto, he held himself freed in law from any
further charge, and that the said parsonage was
in lease with such other-like excuses, but that
notwithstanding he was contented to procure
them twelve sermons every year ; their Lordships
thought fitting this day to call him to the board,’
and they then reminded him that, ‘ beside the great
obligations they had as Christians, it behoved
them to press his Lordship, notwithstanding
the former excuses, to have yet a further care of
the teaching so great a multitude—there being
4,000 people—considering how busy the priests
and jesuits are in these days, especially in these
parts, not only labouring to corrupt his Majesty’s
subjects in their religion, but also infecting them
with such damnable positions and doctrine touch-
ing their allegiance unto his Majesty’s sacred
person.

‘Whereupon the said Bishop made offer unto
the board that he would withdraw the Vicar there
now present, and send in his room some learned and
religious pastor who should, as it was desired, weekly
preach unto the people, and carefully instruct
them in points of faith and religion, of which
their Lordships were pleased to accept for the
present, and accordingly enjoined him to the
performance thereof, and withal ordered that the
said preacher now to be presented, should first be
approved and allowed by the Lord Archbishop of
York in respect of ability and sufficiency.’

In the register of Sandwich, under February 4,

4—2

52 Social Life as Told by Parish. Registers.

1646-47, is entered the burial of Mr. Samuel
Prichard, minister and preacher of God’s Word ;
‘and it appears from the books of the Corporation
that in the year 1611 the Corporation allowed
thirty pounds to Mr. Richard Marston, preacher
of Gods Word, to be entertained to pedchiia
weekly lecture in the town; and im the yede
1614,-the same sum was allowed “for a dike
service to Mr. Geere, Master of Arts.’

On the other hand, sometimes we find a parson
over-anxious not to give offence to his parishioners.
A memorandum at the end of the reetsten er
Newdigate Church, Surrey, made in the year
1634, by a cautious Rector, to prevent any rights
being compromised by his ‘admitting a parishioner
to receive the Holy Sacrament in “his church at
Faster, is worthy of mention: ‘An. Dom. 1634.
Mart 12. Be it known! tor all men Isyeese
presents that I John Butcher dwellinge in a certain
tenement of which question hath been made many
yeeres whether it lie in Charlewood or Newdigate,
and is not yet decided, upon grant and leave given
me and to my friends’. = and) (te jeeeyen
Sacrament at Easter next for this one time at ye
parish Church of Newdigate yt y° same may not be
prejudicial to y° parish of Newdigate for y* time
to come, and do confesse that I have y said
libertie for this time by leave. And in witness
hereof I have hereunto set mine hand y* day and
yeere above written.’

Then follows another note in continuation,
signed and attested as befores “Also, ye sear
Ch" Butcher desired leave for himselfe and family

Parson and People. EA

to come to y* Sacrament at Whitsontide, 1636.’
It may be added, there is a similar memorandum
to prevent the parish from being compromised or
prejudiced by leave given for the next two Com-
munions from April 16, 1641, the rubrical minimum
of three per annum being probably borne in mind.*

In the Bispham register for October, 1670, 1s
the following memorandum, which throws some
further light on the way in which the books were
then kept: ‘ The Almanacke for the yeare is lost,
but if I find it at any time hereafter the persons
therein mentioned shall be registered on the left
hand as truly as any others. ‘Therefore Reader I
humbly begg your excuse wishing noe greater
crosse nor losse may eu’ fall to you or yours. It
may be presumed that the ‘Almanacke’ was not
found, as the only entry on the left-hand page in
the year 1671 is the baptism of Robert Wayte,
minister of Bispham.t

That the parson did not always have an easy
time with his parishioners—oftentimes the most
unseemly broils and disturbances upsetting the
parish—is abundantly proved in our old parochial
documents. From Hayes register, for instance,
we learn something of the extraordinary doings of
a parish only twelve miles from London, so recently
as during the years 1748 to 17543 the state of
riot and disorder there disclosed seems to have
almost driven the poor Rector wild. These are
some of the notices of what happened :

* See “ Surrey Archzological Collections,’ vol. vi., p. 269.
+ See H. Fishwick’s ‘History of Bispham,’ Chetham
Society, 1887, p. 70.

54 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

‘Feb. 11, 1749. The Company ef Anees
by the consent of the Ordinary, were forbidden
to sing any more by the Minister, upon account
of their frequent ill-behaviour in the Chancel,
and their ordering the Carpenter to pull down
part of the Belfry without leave from the Minister
and Churchwardens.’

On another day, March 182. “he Ceng
gave out the 100 Psalm, and the singers imme-
diately opposed him, and sung the 15" and bred
a disturbance. The Clerk then ceased) PANGI
under 1752 it is entered: “Robert Jolncem
buried, and a sermon preached to a noisy con-
gregation.’ But these were not the only cases of
insubordination which disturbed the Rector’s mind ;
for on one occasion, when the Acton ringers came
over, the churchwarden ordered the belfry door to
be broken open for them to ring, ‘ contrary to the
Canon and leave of the minister.’ The parish, in
truth, seems to have grown more unruly as time
went on; for one day ‘the ringers and other
inhabitants disturbed the service from the begin-
ning of prayers to the end of the sermon, by
ringing the bells, and going into ae gallery to
spit below ’ ; andl at another time ‘a fellow came
into Church with a pot of beer and a pipe,’ and
remained ‘smoking in his own pew until the end
of the sermon. *

But however unfortunate the Rector of Hayes
may have been in being subjected to such scandals,
there were equally obstreperous individuals in

* See ‘ Parish Registers in the Uxbridge Deanery’: the
Antiquary, vol. xviii., p. 65.

Parson and People. 55

other parishes. Thus, in Middleham register we
find this strange entry:

‘Burials.—October 29" 1792—I enter under
the head of burials, as spiritually dead, the names
et john Sadler, Clerk to Mr. John Breare,
Attorney-at-law, of this place, and Christopher
Felton, Clerk to Mr. Luke Yarker, Attorney-at-
law, of this place: first, for irrelevant behaviour a
second time after public reproof on a former
Gecasion of the Same sort; and secondly,
when mildly admonished by me not to repeat the
same, they both made use of the most scandalous
and insolent words concerning myself, for which
I thought proper to pass a public censure upon
them after sermon—though they were wilfully
absent—in the face of the congregation, and enter
the mention of the same in this book, that the
names of those insolent young men may go down
to posterity as void of all reverence to God and
his ministers.’

And under February 12, 1608,
in the Greystoke registers:

‘Thiss daye two Sermons by Mr. pison one
affore none and the other after none and Edward
Dawson taylyor did openlye conftess before the
Congregation that he had abused the mynister S
Matthew Gibson upon the Saboth daye at Eaven-
inge prayer.’

Cases of this kind were far from uncommon,
and the Rector of Scotter, Lincolnshire, nee
eae ee this note in his register :

‘ 1667-8. Jan. 19. mem. That on Septuagesima
Sunday one Francis Drury, an excommunicate

it is entered

56 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

person, came into the Church in time of divine
service in y° morning, and being admonisht by me
to be gon, hee obstinately refused, whereupon y°
whole congregation departed ; and after the same
manner in the afternoon the same day he came
againe, and refusing to againe go out, the whole
congregation again went home, so y' little or noe
service performed that day. T prevented is
further coming in yt manner, as he threatened, by
order from the justice upon the Statute of Queen
Elizabeth concerning the molestation and disturb-
ance of public preachers—O tempora! O mores!’

Another parson seems to have been much
disquieted in his mind on account of the laxity
of the parish clerk in keeping the register, and
was afraid blame might one day be given to him
by his parishioners. Hence the Vicar of Carshalton
thought it his duty to make the following memo-
randum in his register, dated March 10, 1651,
which has the merit of originality :

‘Good Reader tread gently:

‘For though these vacant yeares may seeme to
make me guilty of thy censure, neither will I
simply excuse myselfe from all blemishe ; yet if
thou doe but cast thine eye upon the former pages
and see with what care I have kept the Annalls of
mine owne tyme, and rectifyed sundry errors of
former times, thou wilt begin to think ther is
some reason why he that began to build so well
should not be able to make an ende.

‘The truth is that. besyde the misen jane
distractions of those ptermitted years which it
may be God in his owne wysedome would not

Parson and People. .- 57

suffer to be kept uppon record, the special ground
of that ptermission ought to be imputed to Richard
Finch, the pishe Clerke, whose office it was by
Jong pscrition to gather the ephemeris, or dyary
by the dayly passages, and to exhibit them once a
yeare to be transcribed into this registry; and
though I often called upon him agayne and agayne
to remember his chadge, and he always told me
that he had the accompts lying by him, yet at
last p’ceaving his excuses, and revolving upon
suspicion of his words to put him home to a full
tryall I found to my great griefe that all his
accompts was written in sand, and his words
comitted to the empty winds. God is witness to
the truth of this apologie, and that I made it
knowne at some parish meetings before his own
face, who could not deny it, neither do I write it
to blemishe him, but to cleere my own integrity
as far as I may, and to give accompt of this mis-
carryage to after ages by the subscription of my
hand.’

But, it may be added, the country parsons had
often cause to complain of the indiscretions of their
parish clerks, whose conduct at times was far from
what it should be. Thus, in a small work entitled
<The Exaction and Imposition of Parish Fees
Wiscewercdy by Erancis Sadler (1738), it is re-
corded how ‘one Phillips, Clerk to Lambeth
Parish, ran away with the register book, whereby
the parish became great sufferers; and in such a
case no person that is fifty years old, and born in
the parish, can have a transcript of the Register
to prove themselves heir to an estate. And Burn

58 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

tells of a search that was once made at Rochester
by a person who used every means to rid himself
of the clerk’s presence, but finding that he could
not be left alone, he offered him a sum of money
to assist him in the alteration of an entry which
he pointed out.

But the parish clerk was not always the culprit,
for the entries in the register of Norborough are
wanting from the year 1665 to 1670, and after
December 18, 1670, is the following memorandum
made in the register, which has an_ historical
interest :

‘The reason of this defect in the register was
because one Mr. John Cleypole, a factious gentle-
man, then living in the parish of Northborough,
caused the register to be taken from mee, John
Stoughton, then Rector, for which I was by the
Ecclesiastical Court then holden at St. Martin’s
adjudged for satisfaction the sum of £2 mo
which was paid me at the charge of the parish by
Robert Cooke, then Churchwarden.

‘JOHANNES STOUGHTON.

Under 1665 this register contains this entry:
‘Elizabeth, the relict of Oliver Cromwell, some-
time Pro. of England, was buried Nev mO
John Cleypole, mentioned above, was her son-in-
law, Master of the Horse to Cromwell and a
member of his House of Lords.

The subject of fees has always been a prolific
source of contention, and a memorandum in the
register of St. Peter’s, Canterbury, is curious :

‘Met with so much difficulty in getting the

Parson and People. 59

dues for breaking ground in the Church and
IPeayvers in the Church for a funeral on Feb. 13,
1788, that I find myself under the necessity on
such fees becoming due in future to insist on their
being paid before the ground is broke up, or the
corps admitted into the Church.

‘N.B.—The above-mentioned fee not paid till
applied for [by] M* De Lasaux, Proctor of the
Ecclesiastical Court, and not received till March 6,
several days after such application.

< Mem.—The demanding the fees on such occa-
sions is what I have been advised to, by persons
well versed in Ecclesiastical Law. Of my intention
to insist upon these fees, before hand, I gave public
notice at the vestry held for the choice of officers
on Tuesday March 25, 1788.

‘Joon Gostiine, Rector.’

But a further entry shows that the next time
John Gostling was in trouble, it was on account of
his refusing himself to pay. The entry begins
thus:

‘The Churchwardens of this parish having
demanded a Church cess for the parsonage I
refused to pay, I John Gostling, Rector of this
Parish, and enter the following proofs of exemption
from this demand, extracted from Burn’s Eccle-
siasnicalicaw, 4°° edition, vol. 2, page 270. Then
follows the extract, which is succeeded by another
from the same authority, and a third, the reference
tow meh is even as s Degge R: |. c 12.

Similarly, in the Tottenham register, the parson
has made this entry :

60 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

‘Mrs, Elizabeth Husbands was buried April
1754, in my middle chancel, of whose Executor,
Mr. Porton, I demanded and received £4 10—
viz. 4£ for breaking up the ground in my said
middle Chancel, and tos. for performing the
service on the occasion, and this from a full
conviction that the register of this Parish gave
me an undoubted right to demand and receive
said fees.’

Another Rector seems to have got into terrible
difficulties with one of his parishioners—owing to
one of those pew scandals to which allusion has
been made—and was ‘arrested on an action of
trespass. An account of the dispute is recorded
in the register of Woodmancote :

‘On the 1* June Dr. Cooper ’—Rector of this
parish—‘ pulled down the great pew in the chancel
in which the family of the Wests had nestled
themselves, by the permission of former parsons,
so long that they would now have it to be their
owne. The Dr., thinking there was no other
way to be rid of the birds, but by destroying their
nest, notwithstanding their big looks and threats,
did downe with it. Having been once, above two
years ago, by the mother of West convented before
the Bishops about it, for keeping him out while it
stood, who could find nothing for her, only
requested the Doctor’s leave for her sitting there,
but now shee having been long gone and forsaken
it and us, her son Jacob usurping the seat, and
disdaining my leave, I have dispossessed in this
manner, and now expect what he will doe by the
law. Jacob West hath declared how unwilling he

Parson and People. 61

is to part with it, by his boys bringing a chair
after him, to sitt in on the bare earth, which he
did the next day, being Sunday, after the chancel
door was opened for the incomers, which made
sport to the people, in that he looked like one
who would have been glad to be welcome, bringing
his stoole with him,’

The memorandum adds that ‘in October Mr.
Jacob West arrested Dr. Cooper on an action of
trespass, God knows what, and the Dr. ordered
an appearance by his attorney, Mr. Whitpaine.
itm Nov Mr. Jacob West fell verye sick, and
employing Dr. Cooper for his physician, was well
recovered. This trust and kindness on Mr. West
his part, and trustyness ¢7 acceptance on the
Doctor's, begat terms of pacification between
them.’ But it would seem that on Mr. West’s
complete recovery war was again declared: ‘The
Assize being at East Grinstead, on the 27 March,
in this year 1679, by my Counsellor, Mr. John
Gratwick, and my attorney, Mr. John Whitpaine,
I demurred to Mr. Jacob West’s indictment ; and
now I wait for what more Mr. Jacob West can ¢9
will do.’

Again, an entry in the register of East Peck-
ham, Kent, alludes to a serious complaint made
against the parson of Brenchley, for allowing
children to remain unbaptized, connected with
which scandal we find this strange memorandum
in the Peckham register, which in its own words
explains the matter:

«1648. Upon the third of June the following
infants all born in the parish of Brenchley were

62 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

baptized in this parish Church by an order granted
from Sir John Sedley, Knight and Baronett, Sir
John Rayney, and Sir Isaac Sedley, Knight :

‘Whereas complaints have often been made
unto us by many of the principal inhabitants of
the Parish of Brenchley, that they having desired
Mr. Gilbert minister of the said parish to baptize
their Children, and according to the Directorie
offered to present them before the Congregation,
he hath neglected or refused so to do; whereby
divers infants remain unbaptized, some of them
above a year old, expressly contrary to the said
Directorie.

‘We do therefore order that the parents of such
children do bring them unto the Parish Church of
East Peckham, whereby we desire that Mr.
Topping, minister of the said Parish, would
baptize them according to the said Directorie,
they acquainting him with the day they intend
to bring them beforehand.’

And in the year 1605 a charge was made against
the Vicar of Rochdale, that inter alia he did not ‘ use
the Cross in baptism.’ ‘This explains why, in the
following year, in several instances, a small cross is
made in the margin of the baptismal register.

In days gone by, it would seem that the parson
was frequently called upon to make wills for his
parishioners, and in one of the Sebergham parish
registers we find a form, is given which was no
doubt the one used for this purpose. Indeed,
that the parson was expected to be the legal
as well as the spiritual adviser of his parish
may be gathered from the register above named,

Parson and People. 63

where are given, not only a few legal prece-
dents, but also the form of an inventory to a
will, of a certificate for fitness to keep a public-
house, and of a pass for a traveller. Occasion-
ally the parson has entered in his register an
extract from a will; and in that of St. Dunstan,
Canterbury, between the burials of February 9,
1620, and June 10, 1621, a portion of the will of
enn Elerring of Weal is inserted. The will ts
dated May 18, 1592. ‘The testator bequeaths his
soul into the merciful hands of God his Creator,
with a full and certain hope of resurrection in the
Way on \udement. Ele gives to his wife,
Elizabeth Heringe, all his movable goods, and
four pounds four shillings, which John Pope of
Deal owes him, towards the bringing up of his
Elildsen. ‘Wo his eldest son, Stephen, on his
arriving at the age of nineteen years, he gives the
house he now dwells in with six acres and half a
rood of arable land, whereof 54 acres lie adjoin-
ing the said house, in a shot called Smoke and
Drawe Smoke, and half an acre and half a rood
in the West fielde, in a shot called Westowne;
he also gives to his eldest son 14 acres of marsh-
land, lying in a marsh called Stokes Tye. To
his youngest son, Thomas, he gives his house
at ‘Sholdon Chanda gate,’ with 24 acres and
12 feet of land, then in the occupation of
Thomas Piltocke. To his son Thomas he also
gives 2 acres in Didham, and 1 acre, 3 roods
lying at Southwall, in a marsh called Edolls
Marsh. The house in which Thomas Dubletts
was then living with the land annexed thereto,

64 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

and 2 acres of land im Fastland) vere ne me
sold, and the money to be equally divided between
the testator’s three daughters, Constance, Dennis,
and Elizabeth, when they reached eighteen years
of age. The witnesses to the will were Richard
Bowle, William Roberts, and Stephen Rickman ;
the last named, who belonged to Shoulden, was
‘to be my Overseer to this my will,’ while his wife
was ‘Executor.’ But there is not any reference of
any kind whatever to St. Dunstan’s in the whole
of the will.

And in the register of St. Peters, Caster
is an extract from the will of Sallester Collens,
late of Canterbury, widow, deceased, dated
January 7 1799. By this wall she We to aac
minister and churchwardens of St. Peter’s £50
to be laid out “in the purchase of stocks ame
interest arising therefrom to be distributed among
poor widowers and widows residing in the
Parish of St. Peter, at the rate of one shilling
each, on the 29th of January in every year for ever.
If there should not be ‘a sufficient number of that
description, then the shillmes are ta be de.
tributed to such other poor as the minister and
churchwardens shall think proper objects. The
charity is still applied according to the intentions
of Sallester Collens.

Sometimes the parson has broken the dryness
and formality of his entries by little pieces of
biography like the following entered in Dean
parish registers :

‘Robert fHetcher second sonne of Launcelot
fletcher parson of deane by his second wyfe

Parson and People. 65

Susanna daughter of Mr. Robert Dabré and
Elizabeth his wyfe of the citie of Norwich
baptized : 25 May 1598 departed this lyfe upon
Sunday night the six and twenty of March 1626
about nyne of the Clock.

‘He was brought up at Deane Schole: from
there he did goe to London: and was student at
lawe first in Clifford’s Inne: then afterward
admitted into the Inner Temple where he con-
tinued about seven years, then being sent for by
his father he came at Whitsuntide home, to see
his father: and by reason of the visitation at
London stayed all that summer and winter till
Lent following : when he was preparing to returne
with his father to London to follow his studie,
Excess at the next call to be called to the
lawe : but it pleased God otherwise to dispose :
and either by an Impostume in his breast or some
Hart Collick after some ill fitte three or four days
before, to take him to his mercie the time before
mentioned and he was buried in the chancell close
by his mother next the wall on the south syde
upon Monday the seven and twenty of March
wage he was a young man of good parts: of
good and great Hopes: his death much lamented.

‘Corpus terra tegit : Spiritus astra petit.’

Likewise, the early registers of Hammersmith,
the work of the Rev. John Wade, parson from
the year 1662 to 1707, are of an unusual character.
They are written with great neatness, but are in
substance the books of his receipts, interspersed
with notes, in shorthand, of his sermons and other
memoranda. The greatest space, perhaps, is

5

66 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

occupied by lists of the renters of pews, with the
sums paid by each person. At the end of each
quarter is added a list of the presents or geen ss
which he received in addition to the ‘pewage
money. Many of these were from occasional
lodgers in the village. In 1670, Sm, onn Pye
made Mr. Wade a present of ‘ Sinopsis Criticorum,’
which he valued at thirty shillings.

A parson, evidently fond of statistics, makes
two long entries on the tenacity of life evinced by
his female parishioners, and ventures a joke on
the subject. Ten women had buried! Mittcem
husbands, ‘and might perhaps have buried more,
if they had had them, but all the men in Worldham
parish at this time have had buried but three
wives.’

A curious facsimile of early shorthand is given
in the register of St. Chad, Saddleworth, Yorkshire.
So far as it has been deciphered, it appears to be
an extract from an old ballad, entitled ‘ The Gallow
Tree Jowrney’; but why it should have been
inserted it is impossible to say; although no doubt
it had, at the time, some local interest. And then
again, under 1649, the parson, in the resister ot
Rodmarton, has given an item of chit-chat :

‘In the Windowe by the doore of the South Isle
adjoyning to the Chancel, was a little picture in
the glasse, of one praying in the habit of a minister
cum baculo pastorali, and under written, “ Richardus
Exall,” which was broken by hiliran, perhaps he
was att the charge of that window. There is also
upon the west side of Cotes Mowie, in Stone
“ Orate pro animabus Ricardi Wiat ¢ 7 Ricardi de

Parson and People. 67

Rodmerton”’; it may bee it was this Richard which
did joyne with the person of Cotes to build that
towre.’

Another little memorandum, preserved in the
register of Woodmansterne, Surrey, is to this
emeen

‘Thy whom it may concern are desired to take
notice that the Chimny in the Hall-Chamber of
the Parsonage House hath a Summer not far under
one corner of it, soe that it may safely be used for
any ordinary occasions for a small fire in a chamber,
but it is not fit for soe great fires as the Parlour
Chimney— 1675.

Oftentimes, again, the register contains a memo-
randum by the parson of gifts to the church after
the following, which is entered in that of Peckleton,
Leicestershire :

‘In the beginning of this register—commencing
in 1714—that posterity should know how much
iets ebred to the present age, let it be first
recorded, that Thomas Boothby, of Tooley Park,
Esq., who had some time before, at his own
charge, caused very handsome rails to be made
before the Communion table of his parish Church
on Eeckletan: did at this time give to the said
Church a very fair silver flagon and cup for the
use of the Lord’s table. And whereas before this
there was but three small bells, about thirteen
hundred weight, belonging to the Church: he
caused six—about forty hundred weight—to be
made and new hung up, and the steeple to be
pointed at the same time, at his own sole and
proper expence. He gave five pounds to the

5—2

68 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

rector, to defray the charge of underdrawing the
Chancel.’ Such remarks, whilst chronicling acts
of munificence, are pleasing little illustrations of
the liberal interest which the parishioner has
generally taken in his parish church.

We may add that, in some cases, the parson, on
taking leave of his parishioners, has bid them
farewell in a poetical effusion, after the following
fashion :

“To my PARISHIONERS.
‘ Farewell, dear flock, my last kind wish receive,
The only tribute that I now can give,
May my past labours claim a just regard;
Great is the prize, and glorious the reward ;
Transcendent joys, surpassing human thought,
To meet in heaven, whom I on earth had taught.’

These lines occur in the register of Great Easton,
when ‘ Matthew Tomlinson, curate of this parish,

leit Heb: a, 1730.

CHARTER MI.

SUPERS DIDIONS AND STRANGE BELIEFS.

OME of the old superstitions connected with
our social life in the past have, from time
to time, been incidentally noticed in the parish
register ; and in many instances these have been
made the subject of special mention. As might
be expected, there are numerous allusions to the
great witchcraft movement, the first penal statute
against this form of credulity having been enacted
in the year 1541, when Cranmer enjoined the
clergy ‘to seek for any that use charms, sorcery,
enchantments, witchcraft, soothsaying, or any like
craft invented by the devil.’

An extraordinary occurrence is entered in the
parish register of Brandeston, near Wickham
Market, which at the present day seems scarcely
possible. The facts are stated thus :

‘6th May, 1596. John Lowes, Vicar.

‘ After he had been Vicar here about fifty years,
he was executed in the time of the Long Rebellion,
at St. Edmund’s Bury, with sixty more, for being

70 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

a wizard. Hopkins, his chief accuser, having
kept the poor old man, then in his eightieth year,
awake for several nights, till he was delirious,
and then confessed a familiarity with the Devil,
which had such weight with the jury and his
judges, as to condemn him in 1645. or tue
beginning of 1646.’

It appears, from a communication in the Suffolk
Literary Chronicle, that some years after this
disgraceful event, Mr. Rivett, who resided at
Brandeston Hall, gave these additional particulars
respecting the case: ‘I have it from those who
watched with him, that they kept him away several
nights together, and ran him backwards and for-
ward about the room until he was out of breath ;
then they rested him a little, and then they ran
him again, and this they did for several days and
nights together, till he was quite weary of his life,
and scarce sensible of what he said or did.’ It is
further added that, being precluded Christian
burial, he composedly read the service over himself
on his way to execution.*

At a time, too, when death for witchcraft was a
common occurrence, it was not unusual for the
parson to notify such a punishment when it hap-
pened in his own parish register. Thus the registers
of St. Andrew’s, Newcastle, under August 21,1650,
contain this TETEN: ‘ These partis her under
named were executed on the towne mor [moor]
for wiches. Isabell Brown for a wich;’ and the

* “The Suffolk Garland? John Glyde) june SGO:
PP. 244, 245.

Superstitions and Strange Beliefs. 71

names of fourteen other women follow, with the
Weds clon a wien: affixed to each. And it is
added, ‘ The same day executed on the Town Mor
belonging to the Kastel . . . and Jane Martin, the
millars wif of Chattin for a wich.’

ie seems that. in the year 1649, the people. of
Newcastle petitioned the Town Council that all
persons suspected of witchcraft might be brought
to trial. Their wish was granted by the local
authorities, and accordingly a well-known ‘ witch-
tryer’ was sent for from Scotland. On the arrival
of this formidable personage, the bellman went
through the streets ringing his bell, and crying
that any woman complained against for a witch
should be forthwith sent for, and tried by the
person selected to hear the cases appointed.
‘Thirty women were brought for trial, most of
whom were found guilty, only sixteen surviving
their tortures to die on the gallows’; and in the
Corporation Records for the same year, these items
occur: ‘ Paid to the Constables for carrying the
mitenes to gaol, 4°; a grave for a witch, 6%; for
Eye cite witches, A1 5; and in the register of
St. Mary-on-the-Hill, dete under the year
KO DS enota is piven: ‘Three witches
hanged at Michaelmas Assizes, buried in the
corner by the Castle Ditch in Churchyard ta Oe
October.’

Mr. Dawson Turner, in the Appendix to his
‘Sepulchral Reminiscences,’ writes :

< At the Sessions, holden at Great Yarmouth, on
Wednesday, the ngm day of March, in the 24™
year of Queen Elizabeth, there were two women

72 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

indicted for witchcraft—viz Elizabeth Butcher,
and Cecilia Atkyns, both of this town and found
guilty. And because Elizabeth Butcher and
Cecilia Atkyns were culprits, it is adjudged by
the court that they should stand open in the
pillory, in the Market, every Market Day, till
with contrition of heart they had confessed their
witchcraft, on which they should be set at large.
At the Sessions held the 27" day of Aupusr ia
the following year, for the witchcraft aforesaid, it
is decreed that Elizabeth Butcher, because she is
culpable of the witchcraft and felony, above
recited, shall be returned to the prison under the
charge of the gaoler, there to remain till she has
publicly confessed her crime, or there to abide for
the space of a whole year, and, at the discretion
of the bailiffs, to be put in the pillory, in the
public market, for an example to others. At the
Sessions held. on Apml 15 153 then Sar
Elizabeth Butcher was for a third time arraigned,
and was then condemed to be hanged with another
witch named Joan Lingwood.’

Three days after we find the following entry in
the Burial Register :

‘Jone Lingewood ) Wytches hanged
Elizabethe Butcher fi Aipeyill 13

* Alce Cresswell

Elizabeth Bardwell | Executed for Witchcraft

Elizabeth Bugden Buried September 29"

Bridggett Howard TEADA

Marg' Blackbourne

As far down as the close of the seventeenth

Superstitions and Strange Beliefs. 73

century, persons were supposed to die from the
effects of being bewitched.

In the register of Holy Island, Northumberland,
emeent is Given: “1691. William Cleugh,
bewitched to death, buried 16 July’; and in the
register of Coggeshall, Essex, under December
e7em 1og9, the burial of widow Comon is
recorded, ‘that was counted a witch.’ But one of
the most curious cases recorded is one in the
register of Wells, dated 1583, describing the
perishing on the coast of fourteen persons (sea-
men?) coming from Spain, ‘whose deaths were
brought to pass by the detestable working of an
execrable witche of King’s Lynn, whose name was
Mother Gabley ; by the boyling, or rather labour-
ing of certayn eggs in a paylefull of colde water.’

In the parish books of Brentford, under
ise ia, Tosa, this entry is given: ‘ Paid
Robert Warden, the Constable, which he dis-
bursed for carrying away the witches, 6°.’ The
witches of Brentford, it may be remembered, were
notorious at the beginning of the seventeenth
century, and they are alluded to by Mrs. Page in
gene Mery Wives of Windsor’ (Act iv., sc. 2) ;
and one of the characters in Dekker and Webster’s
Pwveseward Bok says: ‘1 doubt. that old hag,
Gillan of Brainford, has bewitched me.’ As
recently as December 19, 1748, it is recorded in
the register of Monks Eleigh how < Alice, the
wife of Thomas Green, labourer, was swam of
malicious and evil people having raised an ill
report of her being a witch.’

Kindred forms of superstition are also occa-

74. Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

sone duly noticed. In many a country village,
the ‘ wise-man,’ or ‘ wise-woman,’ was an important
individual, having been frequently consulted by
all classes where superior knowledge was required.
In addition to ‘ casting nativities’ such a person
was, at any time, ready to give heads of families
information as to the recovery of stolen property ;
and oftentimes in cases of illness, when medical
aid had failed, his or her assistance was sought as
a last resort. In the register of St. Margarets:
Durham, we are informed how one ‘Christopher
Pattison, vulga dict’ ye wise man. was buried
March 14, 17243; and some curious particulars
are preserved in the parish of St. Benedict Fink,
London, respecting a certain strange prophetess,
whose death is thus described :

‘On the morning after the fire in Sweetings
Alley, July 12, 1660, was buried a strange maid
out of Edward Barbour’s house, being daughter
to a prophetess, who named herself Mima Hecres,
but would not declare neither her own right
name, nor the maid’s; yet the maid being searched
was found to die of a fever, and so was permitted
to be buried.’

The fortune-teller, who plied a brisk trade in
years gone by, also renei due mention in the
register, and at Stepney there was buried on
September 24, 1628, one commonly known as
‘William, a dumb man, who died in Ratcliffe
Highway, a fortune-teller.. And then, as nowa-
days, there was to be met with that kind of con-
venient woman who could turn her hand to any-
thing, her advice and knowledge having been much

Superstitions and Strange Beliefs. 75

in request in any case of emergency. At Attle-
burgh, Norfolk, there was buried on August 11,
mos. ¢ Mary, wife of Gilberte Greene, hoastess of
the Cock, who knew how to gain more by her
trade than any other, and a woman free and kind
for any in sickness, or woman in her travail or
childbed, and for answering for anyone’ s child, and
ready to give to anyone's marriage.

The use of talismans, amulets and charms,
which has generally been a feature of the cunning
contrivances of fortune-tellers and others skilled
in secret arts—through being thought to savour
of the same Satanic influence as witchcraft—
was most severely censured and punished ; and the
register of a Scotch parish has this entry under
November 10, 1716:

‘Christian Lessels being charged and interrogate
upon threatning mallifice to her neighbour, and
using charming for the recovery of ane child y:
was sick, she acknowledges both these crimes, and
Says as to y° threatning she was in a passion and
confesses her guilt y’rin, and as to ya charm she
did it simply and ignorantly being advised y’rto
by a north countryman.

Gipsies, again, as dealing in the black arts, were
specially sought after by the authorities, and as far
backs aa 2e Renny WII; there is ‘an Act con-
cerning Outlandish People, calling themselves
Egyptians, ‘using no craft or merchandize, but
deceiving people, that they by palmistry, bearing
them in hand, can tell men’s and women’s fortunes,
and so cheat people of their money, and commit
many heinous felonies and robberies. This Act

"l S ie Gao as — by Eat age

was apparently ee no means a dead letter, for, in
the year 1592) the ‘epister of St Michela
Durham, relates how three men were hanged ‘for
being Egyptians.’ But, whatever may have been
the faults of this class of impostors, they seem
to have conformed to the usages of the Church.
Thus, for instance, it is recorded how at Lou-
borough, in the year 1581, ‘Margaret Bannister,
daughter of William Bannister, going after one
name of roguish Egyptians, was baptized the 2°
April’; and a similar entry occurs in the register
of Lanchester: ‘ William, the son of an Egyptian,
bap: 19 Hebe 1504

In the parish register of St) Bees: too: eis
recorded under May 4, 1596, that ‘ Willielmus
filius Willielmi Volantyne, Egyptin baptizatus
fuit.’ It is somewhat doubtful, however, whether
‘Volantyne’ is a surname, or we ought to read
‘Volantis Egyptii’—‘ fleeing Egyptian’—as this
peculiar people were deemed and gave themselves
out to ben

The Camberwell aa gives the marriage on
June 2, 1687, of < Robert Hern and Elizabenm
Boswell King and Queen of the Gipsies.’ These
parties were probably from the southern precincts
of Camberwell, about Norwood, a place generally
recognised as one of the favourite resorts of the
gipsies. Some years ago, Henry Boswell, well
known as the father and King of the Gipsies, in
Lincolnshire, died in affluent circumstances, and
was buried at Wittering.t

* «Cumberland and Westmoreland Antiquarian and
Archzological Transactions,’ vol. i., p- 298.
t Allport’s ‘Camberwell and its Neighbourhood, p. 79.

Superstitions and Strange Beliefs. 77

A curious case of the burial of a reputed gipsy,
and of the subsequent exhumation of the body, is
entered in the register of Malmesbury, under
September, 1657 :

‘John Buckle, reputed to be a Gypsie, deceased
September 21, 1657, at John Perins house upon
the Fosse, in Shipton Parish, in Gloucestershire,
and was buried in King Athelstone’s Chappell, by
King Athelstone ¢ 3 the Ladye Marshall, within
the Abbie Church at Malmsbury. This burial
vasi september 23. 1657- Howbeit hee was
taken up againe—by means of M" Thomas Frye,
esquier, who then lived in the Abbie, ¢7 by the
desyres and endeavours of others—out of the said
Chappell, and was removed into the Churchyarde,
and there was reburied near the east side of the
Chunchi porch, October 7 1657, in the p’sence of
Me he: Beye, of the Abbie, Esq. M: Pleade-
well, of Mudgell, esquier, Richt Whitmore, of
Slaughter, in the Countie of Gloucester, ey D*
Qui, of Malmesbury, with very many others.’

A mode of divination still common among the
lower orders is that designated the ‘sieve and the
shears, instances of which may occasionally be
read in the police-court reports. According to
the register of Bedworth, Warwickshire, in the
year 1715, a woman called Elizabeth Bott was
admonished for ‘using curious arts, turning the
sieve.’

And in the yea; 1719, is denounced in the
same register ‘the evil of our members going to
be touched by a seventh son in order to cure
diseases, and then wearing the silver he gives

78 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

them.’ This superstition originated in an old
belief—also found to a lamel extent onae
Continent—that the seventh son was born a
physician, and possessed an intuitive knowledge of
the art of healing all disorders, and even occasion-
ally the faculty of performing wonderful cures by
touching only.

In the Dublin University Magazine for August,
1879, the silver charm alluded to above is thus
described :

‘A particular ceremony must be observed at
the moment of the infant’s birth, in order to give
him his healing power. The person who receives
him in her arms places in his tiny hands whatever
substance she decides that he shall rub with in
after-life, and she is very careful not to let him
touch anything else until this has been accom-
plished. If silver be the charm, she has provided
a sixpenny or threepenny bit ; but as the coinage
of the realm may change possibly during his
lifetime, and thus render his cure valueless, she
has more likely placed salt or meal on the table
within reach.’

In the ‘Diary. of Walter Yonge (Camden
Society), we find this entry, which is a curious
illustration of this strange belief :

‘In January, 1606-7, it is reported from London
by credible letters, that a child being the seventh
son of his mother, and no woman child born
between, healeth deaf, blind, and lame; but the
parents of the child are popish, as so many say as
are healed by it. The Bishop of London, Doctor
Vaughan, caused divers to be brought to the child

Superstitions and Strange Beliefs. 79

as aforesaid, who said a short prayer as (he) im-
posed his hands upon, as ‘tis said he did unto
others; but no miracle followeth any, so that it
appeareth to be a plain lie invented to win grace
to the popish faction.’

But if the touch of a ‘seventh son’ was com-
monly thought to be beneficial, it is only too well
known what extraordinary faith was put in the
‘royal touch’—it having been a very widespread
belief that the Sovereign could cure scrofula
‘without other medicine, save only by handling
and prayers. Before anyone, however, could
avail himself of this privilege, he had to ‘comply
with certain regulations — no one having been
allowed to repair to the Court without a certificate
from the parson of his parish that he had never
been touched before. Hence registers of parishes
in the neighbourhood of the Court often contain
entries of these certificates; although our Kings
and Queens were accustomed to touch for this
disease while in their progresses. Hambledon
register, Bucks, under May 17, 1685, tells how
‘Mary Wallington had a certificate to goe before
the King for a disease called the King’s Evil,’ and
[Geiemaiistances are Piven in the register of
Merstham, Surrey. It may be noted that in the
Camberwell register the names of those persons
who were touched in the year 1684 are entered
promiscuously among the baptisms and burials,
es mentioning the time, place, or circum-
stances. *

* See Allport’s ‘Camberwell and its Neighbourhood,’
PP- 77, 78.

80 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

On the title-page of the register of Alfold,
Surrey, is this memorandum :

‘a7, 1710. | gave a centilicate to be: rOucked
for the Evil in these words: Surrey SS. These
are to certify to whom it may concern that James.
—son of Henry—Napper bearer hereof is a legal
inhabitant of our parish of Alford in the County
of Surrey aforesaid, and is supposed to have the
disease commonly called the Evil and hath
desired this our certificate accordingly.’

CHAPTER IV.
EPIDEMICS.

HE ravages of pestilence from which the
country has at intervals suffered, form the
subject of occasional mention in the parish register,
the terrible mortality caused by such epidemics
having been but rarely specially commented upon.
Indeed. it is to be regretted that we do not
learn more from the registers of the diseases from
which our forefathers died. In the register of
St. Alphage, Canterbury, we read of Richard
Harryse, who ‘died of the worms,’ and in the
year 1784 small-pox is mentioned. And in the
Hawkshead register under November 18, 1577,
this memorandum is given: ‘A pestilent sickness
was brought into the parish by one George Bar-
wicke and thirty-eight of the inhabitants died.’
The sweating sickness, ‘the strange and peculiar
plague of the English nation,’ as Mr. Froude de-
scribes it, first showed itself in the year 1485,
reappeared in 1506, again in 1517, and raged
with fatal fury in the year 1551. This epidemic
6

82 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

is, in all probability, alluded to in the subjoined
entries given in the register of Maresfield, under
October, 1538:

‘In the said month, and the 1x day thereon
buried a child of the rayning sickness, whose name
was called Parnell Carvell.

< Item.—I also buried John Hayman, the xmi
daye of October, of the rayning sickness.’

Bishop Kennett describes the sweating sickness
as ‘a new, strange, and violent disease; for, if a
man were attacked therewith, he died or escaped
within nine hours ; if he took cold he died within
three hours; if he slept within six hours——as he
should be desirous to do—he died raving.’ It
seems chiefly to have attacked men in the prime
of life, and of the strongest constitutions. But
the outbreak of the year 1551 was unusually
virulent, and Dr. Caius, the leading English
physician of his time, prepared a treatise for the
use of his countrymen at this crisis. This plague
seems to have been known under a variety of
names, some of which we find enumerated in an
entry in Loughborough register, Leicestershire :
‘1551, June. The swat, called New Acquaint-
ance, alias Stoupe Knave and Know thy Master,
began the 24" of this month.’ It was also termed
‘the “ posting-sickness” that posted from towne
to towne throughe England, and was named
“Stope Gallant” for hytt spared none, for ther
were dawncying in the Courte at 9 o’clocke that
were deadd at eleven o'clock.’ In the registers of
Uffcolme, Devon, for August, 1551, it is described
as ‘the Stup-gallant or the hote sickness.’ This

Epidemics. 83

Te: name, says the late Mr. Chester Waters,*
‘was taken from the French, for the epidemic
which ravaged France in 1528 was called the
Pireusse gallant, because if chiefly attacked
young men in full health and strength. In the
same grotesque spirit the plague of 1675 was
called the “jolly rant” at Newcastle-on-Tyne.’

This epidemic was followed by the plague,
which broke out at repeated intervals. ‘Thus, in
the year 1592 it made its appearance, and the
infection was rapidly carried into the provinces,
as may be gathered from entries like the follow-
ing :

poeeolikmonds Derby. 1592, October. Hic
incipit pestis pestifera.’ This visitation lasted a
year, and then suddenly ceased, as this memo-
randum from the register of All Saints’, Derby,
dated October, 1593, shows: ‘About this time
the plague of pestilence by the great mercy and
goodness of God stayed, past all expectation of
man, for it ceased upon a sodayne, at whych time
it was dispersed in every corner of this whole
parish ; there was not two houses together free
from it, and yet the Lord bade the Angel stay, as
in David’s tyme, hys name be blessed for that.’
And this year, according to the register of St.
Pancras, Soper Lane, London, ‘the plague was
very quick in London, ostie par la pyte lire de
Dieu enflamme a l’enconter la ville.’

Indeed, some idea of the extreme virulence of
this epidemic may be gathered from the registers

A s Parish Registers #1887, p: 72:
6—2

84 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

of St. Peter’s, Cornhill, where, under the year 1593,
this memorandum is entered in the margin :

‘ Thear dyed in London in all- = 25,886
Of them of the plague in all - - 15,003
Within the walles and liberties - 8,598
Without, in ¢7 out of liberties — 17,288:

Then follow these two entries:

‘Innumeros quamius consumpsit, morbida pestis
Seruait dominus meq’ domumq’ meam.’

‘In a thousand five hundred ninety & three,
The Lord preserved my house and mee.
When of the pestilence theare died
Full maine a thousand els beeside.’

In the year 1594 there was ‘the first plague in
Ashborne,’ and the following curious memorandum
occurs in the register of Cranbrook, Kent:

‘In this year following, 1597, began the great
plague in Cranbrook, the which continued from
Aprl the y afst to July r3. 1508 m t WA
observed that before this infection that God, about
a year or two before, took away by death many
honest and good men and women. 2. That the
judgment of God for sin was much before threat-
ened, especially for that vice of Drunkenness which
abounded thar. 3. That this infection was in all
quarters of the Parish except Hartly quarter.
4. That the same begun in the house of one
Brightelling, out of which much theiving was
committed, and that it ended in the House of one
Henry Grynnock, who was a pott companion, and

Epidemics. 85

his wife noted much for incontinence, which both
died excommunicated. 5. That this infection
gott almost into all the Inns and Suckling Houses
of the Town, places then of much misorder, so
that God did seem to punish that himself which
others did neglect and not regard. 6. Together
with this infection there was a great dirth at the
same time, which was cause also of much wailing
and sorrow. 7. This was most grievous unto me
of all, that this judgment of God did not draw
people unto repentance the more, but many by it
seemed the more hardened in their sin.’ And
there is added this note: ‘Now also this year
others of the plague were buried near to their
several dwellings, because they could get none
to carry them into the Church, for it was the
beginning of this infection, so that none would
wenture themselves. Lhe certain day of their
burials one could not learn.’

A memorandum in the parish register of Lough-
borough informs us that ‘the assizes were kept
and held at Loughborough, the 17" day of July,
because the plague was in Leicester,’ and adds,
‘there were eight persons executed and buried the
1g" day of July in this year 1654.

Winder the year 1603, it is recorded in the
femte on ot. Peters, Cornhill, that from
December 23, 1602, oer were Eora. in this
parish 158 persons, and ‘of them of the plague
fe ane it is added = ‘Buried in all this yeare
both without and within the liberties ; and in the
Sour parishes trom the i4 July, 38,244: of
them of the plague 31,578.’ And the epidemic

86 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

of 1603 is denoted in the registers of St. Dunstan’s
in the West, London, by a very considerable
increase of interments, and by a total absence of
persons of rank or importance, for all who pos-
sessed means of escape had fled.

In the year 1604, an entry in the temisteq am
St. Giles, Durham, tells how ‘ Ann Ourd, wife of
Christopher Ourd, was buried on 25% Janm and
significantly adds, ‘So all the household dyed in the
vicitacion at this time, and so y® plague ceased.’

~The parish register of Nantwich gives the
following account of this terrible epidemic :

‘1604, July. This yeare together with the
former yeare and the year following this Realme
of England was vissited with a contagious plauge
generally : whereof many thousands in London,
and other townes and Cities dyed of the same.
The said plauge begane in our Towne of Nampt-
wich about the 24% June 1604, being brought
out of Chester and here dispersed diversly, soe yt
presently our Market was spoyled, the town
abandoned of all the wealthy inhabitants, who
fledd for refuge into dieurs places of the Country
adjoyninge. But of those which remained at
home ther Dyed from the 12" (june) cul ene oe
March followinge about the number of 430 persons
of all deseases. Now seeing God in mercy hath
withdrawn his punishinge hand, and hath quenched
the spark of contagious infection among us, God
graunt that we by Repentaunce may prevent
further punishment ¢ 7 that the remembrance of
this plauge past, may remain in our hearts for that
purpose for ever. Amen.’

Epidemics. 87

Peterborough was in the year 1606 visited by
the plague, for, according to a marginal memo-
randum, ‘Henry Renoulds came from London
where he dwelt, sicke of the plague and died ; so
did his sonne, his daughter, and his servant ; only
his wyfe and her mayde escaped with Soars. The
plague brought by this means to Peterborough
continued there till September following.’

In the year 1625, we learn from the register of
Little Marlow, Bucks, that ‘Mary, the wife of
William Borlase, July 18, 1625, a gratuitous ladye
she was, dyed of the plague, as did eighteen more,’
showing that the terrible visitation of this year,
which is said to have taken off in London alone
as many as 35,417 persons, extended its ravages
into most parts of the country. The desolation it
caused in Cheshire is evident from the subjoined
entries in the register of Malpas, relating only to
one family :

‘1625, Aug. 13. Thomas Dawson of Bradley,
Thomas Jefferies his servant, and Richard Dawson,
his son, were buried in the night. Ralph Dawson,
another son of Thomas, came from London about
the 25% of July past, and being sick of the plague
died in his father’s house, and infected the said
house, and was buried, as was reported, neare unto
his father’s house.’

On August 15 Thomas Dawson was buried at
3.a.m. Later on in the same month we have the
harrowing scene of a plague-stricken man digging
his own grave, and knowing that the survivors of
his family would be unable to bury him.

‘Aug. 24. Richard Dawson, brother to the

88 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

above-named Thomas Dawson of Bradley, being
sicke of the plague and perceyveing he must die
at y* time, arose out of his bed and made his
grave, and caused his nefew John Dawson to cast
strawe into the grave, wch was not far from the
house, and went and lay’d him down in the sayd
grave, and caused clothes to be layd uppon, and
so dep’ted out of this world ; this he did, because
he was a strong man, and heavier than his said
nefew and another wench were able to bury. He
died about the xxiv of August, Whus muck
was I credibly tould he did.’

A few days later on his son was seized with
the plague, and died in a ditch.

‘Aug. 29. John Dawson sonne of the above-
mentioned Thomas Dawson, came unto his father
when his father sent for him being sicke, and
haveyng layd him down in a dich, died in the
night.’ And on September 15 this entry occurs :
‘Rose Smyth, servant of the above-named Thomas
Dawson, and the last of y* household, died of
plague, and was buryed by W™ Cooke near unto
the said hows.’

The whole household was thus exterminated.
And yet, happily, there seems to have been an
exception to this terrible mortality, for a memor-
andum in the register of Witham, under the
year 1625, nnus thus: ‘It is remarkable cnae
in this yeare, being a time of plague and mortality
over the whole kingdom, there was no buriall.
Laus Deo.’

In the register of St. Dunstan’s in the West,
London, all who died, or were supposed to die, of

Epidemics. 89

the epidemic of 1625, are marked with a P, the
first entry so distinguished running thus :

aroe 25-2 BP. abell Cadman, wid’, from the
backeside of the bell.’

It appears that in this visitation as many as 754
persons perished in one parish, part of which was
then fields and gardens, and the whole population
Gi witich im the year 1831 was only 3,443.
Scarcely ‘any other persons above the untitled
commonalty are to be found in the register ; but
there is a servant of Lady Bret, and a woman
fom sit Robert Richis, In Nichols Collectanea
Topographica et Genealogica,’ v. 384, the ‘ whole
career of this tyrant malady’ is given, with the
mortality from day to day.

An entry from Isham register, under the year
1630, says that ‘this yeare was a great plague at
Cambridge, so that ther was no Stirbryshe Fair
kept, and this was a dear yeare, wheat at eight
shillings a strike, Pease six shillings and Mault at
six shillings & eightpence— Pease at five shillings
neven sol deare as at this time. And another
outbreak occurred fourteen years later on, in 1644,
at Egelescliffe, Durham, the register containing
this memorandum : ‘In this year there died of the
plauge in this towne, one and twenty people;
they are not all buried in the Churchyard, and are
not in the Register.’ The circumstances, writes
Bunma sof persons bene buried in the fields,
who had died of the plague, will, in many cases,
satisfactorily account for the discovery of human
bones in the vicinity of towns and villages. A

A oB ton of Parish Registers, p. TIT,

go Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

field at Ealing where those who died of the plague
were buried is still called Dead Man’s Field.’

But it was in the years 1664 and 1665 that

the plague made its ever-memorable appearance,
the first official notice of which appears to have
been an Order in Council, dated April 265 166
announcing that it had broken out in the parish
of St. Giles’s-in-the-Fields ; and in Pepys’ Diary,
under April 30, we get a glimpse of the coming
horror; ‘Great fears of the sickness here ama cae
city, it being said that two or three houses are
already shut up. God preserve us all.’ Curious
to say, no particular mention is made of the
‘great plague’ in the registers of St. Michael’s,
Cornhill, but the proportion of entries compared
with other years shows how severe it must have
been. Under November 18, 1665, we find this
entry: ‘Mary Turner, 18 daie, was baptized, as
appears by the Register Book of Chigwell, borne
the Great Sicknes time at Munkon® Magy tae
doughter’ [the rest cut out].

In the parish of Stepney, it is said that within
the year 116 sextons, grave-diggers, and their
assistants died; and a a memorandum in the
register of St. Mary-on-the-Hill, Chester, we are
told that ‘the plague takes them very strangely,
strikes them black one side & then they run mad,
some drown themselves, others would kill them-
selves, they dye within few hours, some run up >
down the streets in their shirts to the great horrour
Of those im thelcttys:

Mr. George Ayscough, who some years ago
examined many of the parish registers of Leicester-

Epidemics. gi

shire, makes this remark on the parish of Wigston :
‘I find no mention of any particular disorder havin
been in this town, whence it may be concluded to
bera Healehtul situation. In the year 1771 the
disorder mostly complained of was the ague ; and
it was found difficult to cure, chiefly owing, I
apprehend, to the water being suffered to lay in
the streets, the passages to carry it off not being
properly opened ; a real fen, or an artificial one,
having the same effect on the human frame.’

In the year 1703 an epidemic of fever seems to
have broken out in the neighbourhood of Colling-
bourne Ducis, connected with which may be quoted
the subjoined entries :

‘William Brown buryed May 1%. Memdum—
the five last registered died of a feavour which was
very fatall in y5 and y° upper parish—Colling-
bourne Kingston—and more especially to such
who were lett bloud in yS time of y® sicknesse ;
fifteen died in Collingbourne Kingston within ten
weekes; y® distemper probably caused y® late
mild winter.

‘1703. Robert Marshman, of y® same distemper
Wome yo O By experience iti was found yi a
comon medicine called Decoctum Sacrum was of
excellent use, few dying of y" feavour who made
use of y* remedy.’

Similar scraps of folk-medicine are occasional
entered in the register. Thus, the followin
recipe for the plague is given at ‘the end of the
register for burials belonging to St. Swithun’s, East
Retford. The writing is much faded, and has

g2 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

been transcribed in a later hand underneath. The
original runs as follows:

‘In ye time of a plague let ys person ethen
infected or fearfull of y® infection take a penny-
worth of dragon water a pennorth of oyle olive,
methradate 1% €? treacle 1% then take an pace
7 fill it full of Pe w" you scraped it, y2 roast

; and after y* put it to y“ liquor ga strain @&
ae it in ye morning, and if you take yo same at
night lay soap and bay salt to your feet ¢7 sweat
upon it, cep with God’s blessing you shall recover.’

In the parish register of Swettenham, Cheshire,
is the following remedy for the bite of a mad dog:

1704— To cure the bite of a mad dog or cat.
Take six ounces of rue, small sliced, four ounces of
garlic stampt ¢7 pild, four ounces of mithridate or
Venice treacle, four ounces of syruppe, or filde or
scrapt pure English tin or peawter; boyle these
in 5 pints of old ail over a gentle fire for an hour,
then strain it, and keep the liquor in a glass or
close vessel,

‘And thus you are to use this medicine:

‘To a man that is bit you are to ewe 8 ome
spoonfulls warm in a morning fasting, and every
day apply some of the ingredients which remain
after the liquor is strained off to the wound ; but
give it cold to beasts. To a sheep 3 spoonfulls,
to a dog 4, to a horse or cow between 16 ¢ 18,
and they must be given 7 or 8 days together after
the bite.

‘If you add a handfull of ash-coloured liver-
wort to this receipt, it hath been found an excellent
thing, it grows on all dry grounds.’

Epidemics. 93

With this curious recipe we may compare an
equally odd one for curing the bite of a mad dog
hung up in Sunninghill Church :

‘Six ounces of rue picked from the stalk, and
bruised ; four ounces of garlic, bruised; four
pumees ae Venice treacle, ¢ 7 four ounces of
scrapings of pewter. These are to be boiled in
two quarts of strong ale over a slow fire, until
ceducedi to ane quart: the liquor then to be
strained off, and kept close corked in a bottle.
Nine spoonfuls, warm, to a man or woman fasting,
for seven mornings successively Eş six spoonfuls to
a dog. Apply some of the ingredients, warm, to
the bitten part.’

This recipe, it is said, was taken from Gathorp
Church, Lincolnshire, where many persons had
been bitten by a mad dog. Those who used the
medicine recovered ; those who did not died mad.

TARTANE Te Ta aT T AA Tas ra Wat Ta eT eA eT Ce 1 aa TAT A Tr Te Vue aT ti one Tor Tt nae Ot

Sweats

PAM casio emer

ig
£
q
H
È
4
G
N
h
¢
k i

CHARTER V:
PARISH SCANDALS AND PUNISHMENTS.

Cie severity with which notorious delinquents

were punished in olden times forms the
subject of many an entry in the parish register.
Prompt and stern measures were taken by local
authorities to restrain those who endangered the
place or created a public scandal, the mode of
punishment adopted occasionally serving as a
wholesome deterrent to others.

Many villages, for instance, had a cucking or
ducking stool, in which offenders against the
common weal were placed, and at Kingston-on-
Thames we are told how, on Tuesday, Angis 19,
1572, the wife of a man named Downing, ‘ grave-
maker of this parish, was set on a new cukkin
stolle made of great hight, and so brought about
the Market place to Temes brydge, and there had
three duckings overhead and eres, because she was
a common scolde and fyghter.’ And from the
churchwardens’ accounts for the same year we
may presume that the following bill of expenses
were for this cucking-stool :

~.

Parish Scandals and Punishments. 95

T A

72i The making of the cucking stool - =- fo)
Tron work for the same - - = 3.0
Timber for the same - - - 7G

3 brasses for the same and three wheels 4 10’

To a late period Kingston appears to have kept
up this old custom, for in the London Evening
Post, April 27 to 30, 1745, there is this paragraph :

‘Last week a woman that keeps the Queen’s
Head alehouse at Kingston, in Surrey, was ordered
by the Court to be ducked for scolding, and was
accordingly placed in the Chair, and ducked in
the river Thames, under Kingston Bridge, in the
presence of two or three thousand people.’

In the register of Uttoxeter is a charge:

‘For repairing stocks and cucking stool - a lose

And in the registers of Bilston, for the year 1695,
we find :

‘For a new ducking stoole for ye parish - = TOSS

Then there were the parish stocks, which were
in days gone by much used for the punishment of
disorderly persons, the last pair seen in London
being that for the parish of St. Clement Danes,
which remained till the year 1827, in Portugal
Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields. A whipping-post
generally adjoined the stocks, that belonging to
the parish of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields being pre-
served in a vault beneath the church. In Burbach
register it is recorded that ‘ William Townsend,
Baker, planted a young elm tree near the stocks’
in December, 1706; and an instance of a woman
being so whipped is given in an entry in the parish

96 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

register of Croft, Yorkshire: “Jane Burmo os
Darlington, was seet in the Stoxe at Crofte and
was whipte out of the Towne the 374 day of Jan.
Longe =

The following memorandum occurs in the
register of Newtimber, and informs us how in
September, in the year 1615, ‘Robert Komes
being about fifteene years of age, borne, as he
confesseth, at Kynbury, in the Countie of Berk-
shire, was taken to the parish of Newtimber,
vagrant, and there whipped according to the lawe,
for his conduct to the parish of Kynbury aforesaid,
being the ee of his abode ;—this punishment
being, it would seem, inflicted for the wrong done
to the parish which ‘he had deserted. Htad this
happened forty years before, he would probably
have been hanged ; such, at least, was the practice
in the North of England, F

Whipping was a common mode of dealing with
notorious breakers of the law, no respect having
been paid to either sex. There can be nmordonmbi
that such a punishment, through being publicly—
oftentimes in the market-place—performed, had a
strong check on the actions of the unruly. At
Kingston-on-Thames, on September 8 in the year
1752, there were hanged no less than six persons,
and ‘seventeen taken for rogues and vagabonds’
were ‘whypped abowte the market-place and brent
in the ears.’ Indeed, entries of this kind are very
numerous, and are interesting as illustrating paro-
chial discipline in the past. On July 5, 1698, ‘a

* See Brandis ‘ Pop. Antiq.,’ 1849, vol. mi pp. 103, 104.

t ‘Sussex Archzological Collections,’ vol. iv., pp. 275, 276.

Parish Scandals and Punishments. 97

beggar woman of Slapton’ was ‘whipt at Ment-
more,’ Oxon ; and at Brentford, on February 26,
1698, ‘Alice and Elizabeth Pickering, wandering
Children, were whipped according to Law and
sent with a Pass to Shrewsbury, the place where
Bley were born. Ihe reference here is to the
vagrant laws—in force until the year 1744—which
enacted that any persons found begging ‘were, by
the appointment of the head-borough, or tithing-
man, assisted by the advice of the minister of the
parish, to be openly whipped till they were bloody,
and then sent from parish to parish, until they
came to the parish in which they were born.’

To quote further instances, in the register of
Godalming, under April 26, 1658, this memo-
randum is- given :

‘Here was taken a vagrant, one Mary Parker,
widow with a child, and she was whipped according
to law, about the age of thirty years, proper of
personage; and she was to go to the place of her
birth that 1s in Gravesend, in Kent, and she is
limited to iiij days, and to be carried from tithing
to Tything till she comes to the end of the said
journey.

And at the end of the register belonging to the
Church of St. Mary, at Cerne Abbas, is a copy of
the statute of 39 Elizabeth for the suppression of
rogues, vagabonds and sturdy beggars, the persons
punishable being scholars and wayfaring men,
fencers, etc., who were to be whipped and sent
oun “ol che sparish,, And to show the careful
manner in which the law had been carried out,
the subjoined memorandum may be quoted :

7

98 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

‘1661—a registered book for all such rogues
and vagabonds as have been punished according to
law at Cerne Abbas, in Derbyshire: Oct. 11——
James Balden and E. Balden his wife, Thomas
Balden, Robert Balden, and E. Balden, their sons,
and Joseph Dallinger rogues, vagabonds, and
sturdy beggars, weare punished according to law
at Cerne Abbas, and sent with testimoniall from
Constable to Constable to Powell, in Cornwall, the
place of their ordinary abode, there to worke at
hard labour as good subjects ought to do,’

Again, at Wadhurst, Sussex, many cases of
whipping occurred in the year 1633, the register
having these entries:

“zrth June, Anne Diplock was whipped for a
rogue.’

‘roth Dec. John Palmer and Alice, his wife, were
whipped for rogues.’

‘23°. Thomasina Hemming, John Ballard, Mar-
gery Oiles, Robert Spray,and John Sargent whipped.’

How universal the practice of whipping offenders
was in days of old may be gathered from John
Taylor, ‘the Water Poet,’ who, writing in the
year 1630, says:

‘In London, and within a mile, I ween,
There are jails or prisons full eighteen,
And sixty whipping-posts, and stocks and cages.’

The register of Kensington parish contains this
entry: ‘ William Laughford was punished as a
Roage the 1% December 1604. William Brewer
and Kathren his wyf were pu’shed eodem.’

The register of Little Brickhill, which contains
the names of fifty-two criminals who were executed

Parish Scandals and Punishments. 99

in this parish between the years 1561 and 1620,
also has the following important entry: ‘ Cecely
Reves was buried the same day, burned.’ A
similar entry is given in the registry of All Saints’,
Derby. under August 11,1556: ‘A poor blinde
woman called Joan Waste of this parish, a martyr,
burned in Windmill Bit And at Richmond,
Yorkshire, it is recorded how Richard Snell was
burnt, and buried on September 9; and the
following note by Archdeacon Blackburne is ap-
pended to this entry: ‘Concerning this matter,
Mr. John Fox, the Martyrologist, writes thus :
“« There were two of the Snells taken up for their
religion. One, after his toes were rotted off by
lying in prison, by order of Dakins, the Bishop of
Chester’s Commissary, and so went upon crutches,
at last went to mass, having a certain sum of
money given him by the people; but in three or
four days after, drowned himself in a river called
Smail by Richmond. Mhe other Snell was
burned.”

Under May 16, 1640, a curious and interesting
entry relative to military discipline is to be found
in the registers of St. Andrew's, Newcastle, which
records how two ‘sogers for denying the kynges
pay was by a kownsell of war appoynted to be
shot at a pare of galos set up before Tho Malabars
in the byg[barley] market. They kust lotes wich
should dy and the lotes did fall on one Mr. Anthone
Viccars and he was set against a wall and shot at
by six light horsemen, and was bured in owr
churchyard the same day May 16.’

And in the register of St. Mary Magdalene,

WB

100 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

Canterbury, these instances of military discipline
are given :

‘Noveniber : ye: 1 - bemp All Saints im yer
yeare 1694 then a soldier in the Reagement of one
Coronal Coote and in his Company was shott to
death in the farther Deane Joh|n] the day aboue
written and buried in the Chappel yard in Burgat
ground,’

‘July ye 9: 1096 Phen a Seuleer in Coronal
Tittcomb Reagment was shott for deserrter and
in ye heither Deane John and buried at ye same
place whea[r] he was shott.’

And when death was the penalty for stealing,
the parson, from time to time, entered in the
register any cases that occurred in his parish.
Thus, a memorandum in the register of St.
Andrew’s, Newcastle, tells how on August 12, in
the year 1639, ‘ Robart Robsone (was) bured which
was hanged for stelling of a horse from Thomas
Dining the myller At Burbage, Wiltshire, on
August 18, 1728, were buried ‘Simon amans
John Evans, and John Barley, executed at Salis-
bury for house-robbery.” And on August 21,
1650, one Ellenor Robson was hanged for
‘stelling of silver spoones’; and on the same day
eight prisoners were ‘executed on the towne mor
belonging to the Hy Kastell for stelling.’ Judging,
indeed, from incidental entries in the registers of
this parish, hanging seems to have been carried on
in a somewhat wholesale fashion. Thus, under
April 6, 1638, it appears that four were hanged :
‘Four hanged and buried in oure Church yard—
Jo Harop within the Church sone of George

Parish Scandals and Punishments. i01

Harop hanged. Jo Hall hanged. Jayn Jacksone
hanged. Ralph Dode hanged.” And on another
occasion as many as twenty persons met this fate
im oie day And in the tegister of St. Mary
Magdalene, Canterbury, we read :

“Memorandum :—That in ye yeare : 1698 in
August ye g ye Lord Chef Justices Hoult and
Justices Scrogg Holt sat on Isapris [Nisi Prius]
and Scrogg one life and death and then was con-
demned 6 men: 3 deare stelers: 2 seamen and: T
mason.’

Mr. Joseph Meadows Cowper adds: ‘ Canter-
bury was well supplied with gibbets. By which-
ever road a stranger entered the city, the ghastly
spectacle of the gallows, with the bodies of one or
more felons dangling therefrom, would be almost
sure col meet lis gaze. *

And we may note here an entry of the burial,
in the year 1643, in the register of St. Mary-on-
the-Hill, Chester, of one who had no doubt in his
lifetime helped many an unfortunate person out of
this world: ‘ John Edwards, the Hangman, buried
in North Churchyard 17th of November.’

Speaking of executions, the parish register of
Hawkshead, under April 8, 1672, records the
following :

‘Thomas L who for poysoning his owne
family was adjudg’d att the Assizes att Lancaster
to bee carried backe to his owne house at Hye
Wray where hee lived, and was there hanged
before his owne door till hee was dead, for that

* ‘Registers of St. Mary Magdalene, Canterbury.’ Intro-
duction, vi.

102 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

. then was brought with a horse and . . . into
the Caulthouse meadow and forthwith hunge upp
in iron chaynes on a gibbet which was sett for that
very purpose on the south side of Sawrey .. .
near unto the Pooll Stang and there continued until
the time as hee rotted, and ye bone from =): 4

And the register of St. Dunstan’s-in-the-West
has this curious entry :

‘1649. Aug. 18. M: Dawbeny Dysme, gent.
of the Temple. He was hanged at Tyburne, for
pistolling a man in Holborne; ¢3, being brought
from thence in a boate, he was interred by the ©
way-side. Twenty-four hours after, he was buried,
out of ye Inner Temple: in ye funcher Church-
yard.’

A burial entry in the register of Chute, Wilt-
shire, under the year 1617, runs as follows:

—— Luke Fox, being endicted, arraigned,
and found guiltie for murthering Robert Corderoy,
gent. the thirteenth day of July, in the yeare
of our Lord 1611, and being executed for the
same at Fisherton Anger, was buryed there the
xxiiijth day of July.’

It would appear, writes Mr. Poole im’ “his
‘Customs, Superstitions and Legends of Stafford-
shire, that collections were made in the churches
for the keeping of the gibbets in repair, and he
quotes an entry from the old registers of Wolver-
hampton Church—‘ 1555. Charities to a gibbet
beyond Bilston ; and in the registers of Se
Leonard’s, Bilston, are the following items :

Sm A
‘1692. For setting up ye gibbett - - -2 6
1701. For repairing ye gibbett - - 2 T To:

Parish Scandals and Punishments. 103

And, he adds, there used to be a piece of land
in Bilston, as appears from the old rate assessment
books, known as ‘No Man’s Piece,’ where the
bodies of unfortunate persons, who had been
gibbeted, were buried. Up to the last few years
a lane between Bilston and Wolverhampton was
popularly designated Gibbet Lane, a local tradition
assigning it as the locality where the gibbet
formerly stood.

Many remarkable cases of penance performed
in the parish church for acts of unchastity have
been preserved, it having been required that
persons guilty of any such scandal should openly
confess the same. Attired in a white sheet, and
carrying a faggot, the offender was placed in some
conspicuous place in the sacred edifice, where, in
the presence of the parishioners, a public kaon-
ledgment of the wrong committed was made in
me prescnibedi form of words. Whe register of
Croydon tells us how a certain Margaret Sherioux
did not long survive her disgrace. It appears that
‘she was enjoined to stand three market days in
the town and three Sabbath days in the Church ;
in a white sheet, with a paper on her back and
Bosom showing, her sin. ..., She stood one
Saturday and one Sunday, and died the next.’
We lezen, from the register of North. Aston,
Oxfordshire, that a ‘Mr. Cooper sent in a form
of penance by Mr. Wakefield, of Deddington,
that Catherine King should do penance in the
parish Church of North Aston on the sixth day of
March, 1740, and accordingly she did.’ But
from the same record it appears that another

104 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

person who had become a mother before she was
made a wife left the parish to avoid doing public
penance.

But not infrequently those convicted of creating
a public scandal in the parish tried, as far as
possible, to evade punishment, and accordingly an
entry in the Grindon registers, dated May 23,
1725, runs thus: ‘By virtue of a mandate Tom
the Bishops Court, James Meakin, Jun: was ex-
communicated for contempt of the said Court, he
being charged with fornication and not appearing
to answer the Charge.’ But five years afterwards
he appears to have been in a better frame of
mind, for another entry, dated May 19, 1730,
informs us that ‘ James Meakin, Jun" did penance
in this Church and was thereby restored to the
Communion of the Church, pursuant to a mandate,
and absolution taken out of the Bishop’s Court,
dated April 23" 17 30"

Similarly, two young women, as appears from
the parish register of Wadhurst, acted in a like
manner: ‘1677. July 16° Eleonora Woods
et Sarah Moore in Ecclesia Parochiali inter
Divinorum solemnia palam publice et solemniter
denunciatæ et declaratæ fuerunt pro excommuni-
catis.’

‘ April 5" Eleonora Woodgate et Sarah Moore
in Ecclesia Parochiali inter Divinorum solemnia
palam publice et solemniter poenitentiam agebant.’

In the eighteenth century, penance for im-
morality was of frequent occurrence, and instances
are noticed in most old parish documents, a form
of public penance for offenders guilty of fornica-

Parish Scandals and Punishments. 105

tion being preserved in the register of Dalton-le-
Dale. At Roxby, J incolnshire, ‘Michael Kirby
and Dixon Wid had two bastard children, one in
1725, y° other in 1727, for which they did publick
Renante im our Parish Church, Feb. 25. 1727 for
Adultery ;’ and on November 25, 1717, at Sutton
Vallence, Kent, the register tells how ‘ Elizabeth
Stace did public penance for y® foul sin of adultery
committed with Thos Hutchins, Jun’, in Sutton
Vallence Church, as did Anne Hynds for yS foul
sin of fornication committed with Tho’ Daws.’

But for a lesser offence than adultery it would
seem that a person was required to do penance,
as may be gathered from the parish-books of the
parishes of St. Mary Woolnoth and St. Mary
Woolchurch Haw, in the city of London (1538-
wo One entry, for instance, is to this effect :
‘Item, payd a certyficate of penaunce done by
Sheppards wyfe and the powlter for openinge there
wyndowes one the Sabbath daie (1590) sixteen
pence.’ And in some cases the excommunication
of persons for only trivial offences is noticed in our
parish reeords—an evidence of the severity of
Church discipline in bygone times. An entry in
the register of Quorndon, Leicestershire, records
‘an excommunication against Anne Turlington,
the wife of Thomas Turlington, in not sending
an inventory by order of the Ecclesiastical Court
a cieesten-; and the ei of Shoreditch records
how, on June 7, 1619, ‘John Edwards, being
excommunicated, vasi buned the 7 June in’ the
King’s high- waie in Hollywell Laine near the
Curtaine.’

106 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

And among further instances of excommunica-
tion may be quoted two or three cases entered in
the register of Stokesley, from which we learn that
‘Nicholas Mewburn, of Stokesley, weaver, was
excommunicated the 3° day of February, 1744-5,
for refusing to pay his Easter offerings to the
ministeri On February 22, 1746, May Wemes
was excommunicated for fornication; and on
November 15, 1747, Clara Johnson was excom-
municated for contumacy of the Consistory Court
of St. Peters, York, m a cause of slander son
defamation with John Heath, of Whitby, gentle-
man. And on a flyleaf at the end of one of the
Aldbrough registers, Yorkshire, there is a memo-
randum to the effect that, in the year 1634, by
order of Dr. Easdall, Michael Gilbert, the Vicar,
excommunicnted about fifty persons. And again
in the year 1663 he excommunicated about thirty
more by the order of Dr. Burwell) Inpho
instances the names are given in full. And then
comes the following :

‘Mr. Givpert. If any recusant being excom-
municated shall be buryed in any place but in
Church or Churchyard, his executors shall forfitt
thirtie Pounds by Statute, therefore I conceive you
ought to burie him, but let it be accordinge
to the forme of the Churche of England, these
directions were sent under Dr. Burwell’s own hand,
Aug. 18, 1643, when Sir Thomas Tanckred was
to be buried. Tuomas BurweELt.’

CHAHWEER VI.

BIR) AND? BAP ASM:

HE representative character of the parish
register is one of its most remarkable
features, for on its pages are enrolled, side by side,
the names of the high and low, rich and poor,
without distinction. It has been aptly described as
the ‘World’s Great Roll,’ for, as some lines in a
Shropshire register tell us :

“No flattery here, where to be born and die
Of rich and poor is all the history ;
Enough, if virtue fill’d the space between—
Prov’d, by the ends of being, to have been.’

And Lord Eldon once remarked that, ‘ while the
rich had their title-deeds, their parchments, and
their sculptured monuments, there was literally no
record of the poor man’s birth or death except the
parish register, which might not inaptly be called
the Charter of the Poor Man.’*

But apart from the mere registration of names,
much curious information is incidentally given,

e emat, Cosik 57/6.

108 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

illustrative of the domestic life and manners of the
past. Oftentimes the entry indicates, in a striking
manner, a story of sin or romance connected with
the child’s birth, and in a few graphic words is
registered the most quaint piece of biography,
as in the following baptismal entry in the register
of Chute, Wiltshire, dated Ampust 8) MOGGE
< Willam, the sonne of Mary Potinger, a gentle-
woman of Edward Clifford, of Boscombe, which
was delivered in the house of Richard Gale, and
who saith that Edward Clifford the sonne of the
saide Edward, is the childes father.’ Some of the
strangest entries are those relating to illegitimate
children, being described in such terms as ‘ love-
begotten,’ ‘a merry-begott,’ ‘a bye-blow,’ or ‘a
scape- begotten child.) The tenm < bastanah
‘base-born, or ‘unlawfully begotten, is very
common, and occasionally the words ‘child of an
harlot’ occur. In the register of Attenborough
cum Bramscote, Nottinghamshire, we read how
‘upon Sonday the xvie of November a° 1560,
was born Joan y° infant of Dorithie begotten
in fornication, christened at home by reason of
weakness.’ And from the Rochdale register we
gather that the illegitimacy of children was regu-
larly recorded, and in a few cases a memorandum
is added that ‘penance was done.’ Equally
curious are the circumstances entered relating to
births of this kind, as in the following from the
Stepney register: “Oct. 22, 1699) | @llecmderm
son of Katherine, wife of Alexander Tucky of
Poplar, begotten she affrmed in the field on this
side the mud wall near the Gunne, about nine of

Birth and Baptism. 109

the clock at night; the father she knew not, but
the said Alexander by them that brought the child
to be baptized, requested that it might be recorded
in his name.’

Mher tem a Children of God’ or “Creatura
Christi’ was also applied to illegitimate children,
but the phrase would seem also to have been
applied in the sixteenth century to infants baptized
by the midwife, as in the parish register of Staple-
ince Went = “1547. Lher was baptized by the
mid-wyffe, and so buried, the childe of Thomas
Goldham called creature.’ And in ‘Piers Plow-
man’ we find the word used :

‘I conjured him at the laste
If he were Cristes Creature
Anoon me to tellen.
“Nam Cristes Creature, quod he ;
“In Cristes Court by knowe wel,
And of his kyn a party.”’

Occasionally such children lived to be married,
as another entry in Staplehurst register shows:
esos July 1g, Marryed John Haffynden,
and Creature Cheseman, young folke.’

Connected with the births of illegitimate children,
may be noticed the oftentimes pathetic and sad
entries relating to foundlings, the naming of
whom, at times, sorely taxed our forefathers. But
one way out of the difficulty was to give the child
the name of the parish in which it was found; and
by the Temple register it appears that from the
year 1728 to 1755 as many as 104 foundlings
were christened there, all of whom were named
Temple or Templer. And from the register of

110 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

St. Lawrence, Old Jewry, we find that the name
of Lawrence has invariably been given to found-
lings in that parish. Only too often, however,
foundlings seem to have been named in a hap-
hazard manner, as baptismal entries like the sub-
joined, in the register of St. Dunstan’s, London,
show :

©1618. Mary Porch, a foundling, bapt 18 Jan'y.’

©1631. Eliz. Middlesex, found in Chancery Lane.’

And in the register of St Grenon si by jam
Paul’s, we read of < Moyses and! Aaron. tae
children found in the street, 28" December, 1629.’

In the register of St. Dionis Backchurch, under
December 14; 1567, this entry oceuns -

‘A chylde that was fownd at the strangers dore
in lymstrete, whych chylde was fownde on Saynt
petters day in An°® dni 1567, and fonde of tie
pishe coste, wherefore they named the chylde by
the day that he was fownd, & syrname by the
pishe, so the chyldes name ys Petter Dennis,’

And in the register of St. Mary Magdalene,
Canterbury, there is, in the» year 1675, an entry
recording the baptism of ‘ one left in ye parish,’
and she was baptized by the name of Mary.
Two godfathers and two godmothers ‘stood’ for
the child, but as her parents were unknown, she
appears without a surname. But in after-years
she appears to have acquired one, for in the year
1698 we find one ‘ Marie Magdalen’ was buried.

Most readers, too, are familiar with Sir Richard
Monday, who died at Monday Place, in Crabbe’s
amusing poem of ‘ The Parish Register’:

Birth and Baptism. ITI

‘To name an infant, met our village sires,
Assembled all, as such events requires,
Frequent and full the rural sages sate,
And speakers many urged the long debate.
Some harden’d knave, who rov’d the country round,
Had left a babe within the parish bound.
First, of the fact they questioned, < Was it true ?”
The child was brought—what then remained to do?
« Was’t dead or living?” This was fairly proved,
”T was pinched—it roar’d—and every doubt remov’d.
Then by what name th’ unwelcome guest to call
Was long a question, and it pos’d them all.
For he who lent a name to babe unknown,
Censorious men might take it for his own.
They look’d about, they ask’d the name of all,
And not one Richard answer’d to the call.
Next they inquir’d the day, when, passing by,
Tb’ unlucky peasant heard the stranger cry ;
This known, how food and raiment they might give
Was next debated, for the rogue would live;
At last, with all their words and works content,
Back to their homes the prudent vestry went,
And Richard Monday to the workhouse sent.
Long lost to us, our man at last we trace,

Sir Richard Monday died at Monday Place.’

Although many of these poor children did not
long survive their baptism, yet it is fair to presume
that some became founders of families, for, as it
has been pointed out by Mr. Nicholls, the surname
of Dunstan is found in numerous entries in St.
Dunstan’s register—among others, Thomas Dun-
stan, Pater of the Rolls, buried 1603—and still
remains in the parish.

To quote further cases in the register of St.
Peter’s, Cornhill, there are entries of a vast number
of foundlings, who, according to a common custom,
were all surnamed Peter, after the saint to whom

112 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

the parish church was dedicated; one of them
bears the name of Symon Peter.*

And the following entry is from the transcripts
of St. Mary’s, Dover :

‘July 24, 1718. Susanna daughter of Francis
and Margaret Hamilton: this poor woman’s maiden
name is Margaret Brown: her child-birth pains fell
upon her at the half-way-house betwixt this and
Canterburie, and she brought her child here to my
house and I christen’d it. She herself [and] her
ancient father and mother are going to Francis
Hamilton in New England, where they say he is
settl’'d in a plantation left him by his deceased
brother who lived there.’

And in the registers of St. Antholin, London,
under January 8, 1618, this quaint entry occurs:

‘Margery dau to William Semer, his wife or
quene a vagrant came out from turnebull Street,
& thether went againe, till hir belly bee full, shee
was delivered at Mrs. Smith’s doore one Christmas
day, her child was chr 8.’

It is remarkable that, during the four years
irom 1748 to 17a inclusive, there are about fifty
entries of burials of foundlings i in the Twickenham
register, from which it has been inferred that either
a foundling hospital must have existed in the
neighbourhood at that time, or that the exposure
of infants upon the unenclosed lands hereabouts
must have been frightfully common. But the
former conjecture, perhaps, is the more probable,
especially as several interments occur in previous

* «Registers of St. Peter’s, Cornhill’ (Harleian Society),
1S7 Breface xii:

Birth and Baptism. 113

years, being described as ‘ from y® Foundling Hos-
Gee Auda corespondent of Notes and
Queries baptized a child Benjamin Simon Jude.
On expressing some surprise at the strange con-
junction, he was informed that the child was born
on the festival of St. Simon and St. Jude, and that
it was always considered very unlucky to take the
day from the child.

Among further entries of a similar kind in the
registers of St. Andrew’s Church, Newcastle, under
Rebnuagy r3. 1034, this curious one Occurs:
‘Margaret, sup’ d [supposed daughter | to Richard
Richardson. Suerties. Charles Robson, Margaret
Thompson and Margaret Maddison. It was
borne under a wayne before Richard Aplbyes dore
in a morning in a sore frost and snaw it came of a
sudan to us or ells it had p’ished, and wee knew
mot whence it so wee had nothing. And a
memorandum in Kensington register records how
‘a woman child, of the age of one year and a half
or thereabouts, being found in her swadlinge
clothes, layed at the Ladye Cooper's gate, baptized
by the name of Mary Troovie, 10 October.’

Comical mistakes in the naming of children
often seem to have occurred—in most cases made
by the parents, and afterwards laid by some of
them to the parson’s charge. In the register of
St. Nicholas’ Church, Great Yarmouth, we learn
that on December 21, 1818, a child was baptized
as Susannah Drury B——, the following note
being subsequently added: ‘By mistake of the
father baptized as a girl—rebaptized JanY 5, 1819,

* Cobbett’s ‘Memorials of Twickenham,’ p. 69.
8

114 Soctal Life as Told by Parish Registers.

when the names given were Richard Drury B
But it is not surprising that mistakes of this kind
occasionally happened, for it appears a custom
prevailed in Great Yarmouth at “the end! orate
last and commencement of the present century to
send the nurse with the infant to the parsonage,
a day or two after its birth, sometimes on the
very day it saw the light, to have it baptized.
One shilling was paid, ostensibly for the trouble
of making the entry in the register-book. This
shilling was not unfrequently a source of tempta-
tion to the bearer, preventing her from reaching
the parsonage, and the infant from receiving bap-
tism. Baptism was then, we are told, very seldom
administered in the church, the parson requiring
a fee of two shillings and sixpence for each child
for public baptism in church on a week-day.*
And in ‘ Exactions of Parish Fees Discovered,’ by
Francis Sadler (1738, p. 54), it is recorded how
in Battersea their late clerk had been detected
registering boys for girls and girls for boys, and
‘not one half of the register-book, in his time, was
correct and authentic, as it ought to be.’

But among baptismal blunders in other parishes
we find this strange entry in the register of burials
belonging to Bishop Wearmouth, Durham :
‘Robert, daughter of William Thompson, bap.
15 Feb. 1730, the midwife mistaking the sex,
ebrietas dementat’; and an entry in the register
of Hanwell, Middlesex, tells how ‘Thomas, son
of Thomas Messenger and Elizabeth his wife, was

* «St. Nicholas’ Church, Great Yarmouth,’ Edward J:
Lupson. pps 132. 183i

Birth and Baptism. LIS

born and baptized Oct. 24, 1731, by the midwife
at the Font, called a boy, and named by the god-
father, Thomas, but proved a girl!’ Careless
blunders of this kind were, indeed, of common
occurrence, and often gave rise to serious com-
plications, It must be remembered that in former
years, if there was any likelihood of the child
dying before a priest could be procured, the mid-
wife was bound to baptize it, and curates were
enjoined ‘to instruct midwives openly in the
Church in the words and very form of baptism,
to the intent that they may use them perfectly,
and none other.’

In the sixteenth century it was not uncommon
for two or three members of a family to bear the
same name, and the following extract from the
register of Beby, Leicestershire, is an example of
a custom which must have caused endless con-
fusion in large families :

pugsq) Item, 29 day of August was. John
and John Sicke, the children of Christopher and
Anne, baptized.’

‘Ttem.* The 31% day of August the same John
and John were buried.’

Again, in the register of Maresfield, Sussex,
there are cases of lay baptism performed by the
minister’s wife, a midwife, and a layman; and
under the year 1579 this entry occurs :

‘Was baptized Joan Birmingham, the daughter
of John Birmingham, and Joan his wife, by the
midwife at home, and it was buried on the 20% day.

‘Thomas Rofe baptized by Mr. Clipper of
Marshalls,’

8—2

116 Soctal Life as Told by Parish Registers.

The register, too, of Horstead Keynes records a
baptism in which the ceremony was performed by
a ‘Mr. Griffin, a person unknowne.’

The disturbed state also of politics in the seven-
teenth century gave rise to many irregularities in
baptisms, as entries like the following from the
register of Lowestoft show: ‘ During the Common-
wealth, and the Restoration of Charles Mi ine
entries were made in the Parish Register.’ The
Rev. Jacob Rous, then Vicar, writes thar om
March 14, 1643, himself, with many others, was
carried prisoner by Colonel Cromwell to Cam-
bridge ; so that for some time following there was
neither minister nor clerk in this town, but the
inhabitants were obliged to procure one another
to baptize their children, by which means, he adds,
there was no register kept. ‘Only a few were by
myself baptized in those intervals when I enjoyed
my freedom.’

And in the register of Horley for the year
1649 there is a leaf inserted with this heading:
‘These that are regestred in this leaf were not
regestred at the time of their birth, but were
regestred by the directione of ther parentes by
me Henry Shove sworne regester for horley.’

From the year 1586 up to the commencement
of the seventeenth century there are repeated
entries in the registers of SS. Peter and sku
Mitcham, of ‘ nurse children,’ and in one instance
such a child is described as from ‘ drewes nursery’;
and under March 25, 1595, this entry is given:
‘francis Tailor a Commo keeper of children was
buried,’ after which date the baby-farming in

Birth and Baptism. tg,

these parishes seems to have gradually ceased.*
Similar entries occur in the Petersham registers,
Miles, on June 21, 1669: ‘ Eleezabeth Gardner
a nurse Child of Goody Tanners was buried’ ;
and in August of the same year a further entry
tells how ‘ Another Nurse Child of Goody Tanners
was buried.’ The early registers of Limpsfield,
Surrey, ‘every year, on the average, record the
busal of a nurse child’; and if, as Mr. Alfred
Fleales watesi entries such as ‘1558, May 18,
buried Lucas, a Londoner’s Child kept by Henry
Wells, mean the same thing, there would prob-
ably be at least three buried every year, a very
large number in proportion to the small popula-
tion of the parish.

mm ento im Greystoke registers, April 13,
159%, records the burial of a child of ‘a Spayner
at Whylbarrow,’ this ‘spayner’ being probably a
person to whom children were sent to be weaned.
In the Yorkshire dialect we find ‘to spane’ used
for ‘to wean,’ and in modern Cumbrian the word
takes the form ‘speann.’ Burns used the word in
this sense in his ‘Tam o Shanter’ :

‘But withered beldams, auld and droll,
Ringwoodie hags wad spean a foal.’

Baptized infants, who died within the month
after their baptism, were generally shrouded in
the white cloth—‘ chrisom’—put on the head at
baptism, and on this account they were called
‘chrisoms.’ But although the chrisom was ex-
pumece irom the Prayer-Book of 1552, the

* See Refiguary, vol. xviii., p. 4.
T ‘Surrey Archzological Collections,’ vol. iv., p. 245.

118 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

memory of it long lingered in the hearts of the
people, and down to the eighteenth century babes
dying in their innocence were styled chrisoms in
the bills of mortality and in parish registers.
Under the year .1687, this entry occurs im tue
register of Westminster Abbey: ‘The Princess
Annis Child, a Chrisome bur. 22 Oct.” 2 praemiee
reminding us of Keble’s beautiful words in his
‘Lyra Innocentium’ :
‘Radiant may be her glance of mirth,
Who wears her chrisom vest,
Pure, as when first at her new birth
It wrapt her tender breast.’
And it may be remembered that in ‘Henry V.,
when the death of Falstaff is announced, Mrs.
Quickly replies :

“Nay, sure, hes not in hell: hes im “inches
bosom, if ever man went to Arthur’s bosom. A’
made a finer end and went away an it had been
any christom child.’

Bishop Taylor, too, in his *Etely Eime
makes use of the word in the following beautiful
passage: ‘This day is mine and yours, but ye
know not what shall be on the morrow ; and every
morning creeps out of a dark cloud, leaving
behind it an ignorance and silence, deep as mid-
night, and undiscerned as are the phantasms that
make a chrisome child to smile.* In the register
of Richmond, Surrey, as in most others, there
are several entries of chrisom children Wines
August 24, 1626, the burial of ‘a Chrisom Child

* A full account of ‘Chrisom Child,’ by Thomas George
Norris, will be found in the Exeter Diocesan Society Publica-
tions, 1847.

Birth and Baptism. IIQ

Gm eymald Ashen * is recorded; and under
December 7 16396, that of *a.Crisome of Mr.
ese Of Mew, | Winder March 12, 1650, this
enay i coven: CA Chrisome of Sir Harbar
Lunsons buried.’ Among further instances of this
custom, we read in Limpsfield register, under
May 29, 1629, that ‘a Chrysome of Mr. Thomas
Greshame’ was buried. And the register of
Bletchingley, under the year 1596, states that
‘two Chrisomars of Roger Combers, Wm. and
Solomon, was buried the xxv of September.’

In the register of Maresfield, Sussex, a very
interesting entry occurs connected with the mode
of baptizing children: ‘1644. Baptized Ursula
Morgan, the first child baptized after the new
fashion. | The old custom of baptism was by
immersion, but aspersion, or sprinkling, was
allowed if the child happened to be weak, and the
practice of administering the Sacrament of Bap-
tism in this way ‘was gradually introduced by
our divines, when they returned from the Con-
tinent in Queen Elizabeth’s reign. During the
latte; peri ot her remok and those of James: I.
and Charles I. very few children were dipped
aoe ont Afen the Restoration the old
practice was again gradually introduced, which 1s
probably that alluded to above.’ In the parish
register of Hillingdon, Middlesex, there is this
curious entry : ‘Baptized, Elizabeth, the daughter

esce ‘camer Archeological Collections,’ vol. ii., pp.
85-88, and ‘London and Middlesex Archeological Society,’
WO; thins, p- 211:

+ ‘Sussex Archeological Collections,’ vol. iv., p. 256.

120 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

of William Pratt; Feb: 25%) 16705 the inse tance
in eleven years was baptized with water in the
font, which I never could get reformed, till I had
gotten a new Clerk, John Brown, who presently
did what I appointed to be done.’

Incidental allusions to the many superstitions
connected with birth are occasionally noticed, as
in the register of Blendworth, Hunts, where this
memorandum is chronicled: ‘John, the Son of
John Lutman y° younger, and of Priscilla his wife,
was born about three of y° Clock in the morning,
and bapt. yS 12% of the same, pileum naturale,
that is, a certain film or skin like a cap, a thing
not common.’ According to an old piece of folk-
lore, which was prevalent as far back as the days
of the Roman Empire, a caul was considered not
only a highly propitious omen for the child itself,
indicative of its good fortune in years to come,
but, as a talisman, was supposed to preserve the
purchaser in the hour of danger. Hence it was
always popular with sailors, who oftentimes paid
large sums to possess this mystic charm. The will
of Sir John Offley, Knight, of Madeley Manor,
Staffordshire, proved at Doctors’ Commons
May 20, 1658, contains this singular bequest :

‘Item, I will and devise one jewel done all in
gold and enamelled, wherein there is a caul that
covered my face and shoulders, when I came into
the world, the use thereof to my loving daughter,
the Lady Elizabeth Jenny, so long as she shall
live ; and after her decease the use likewise to her
son, Offley Jenny, during his natural life; and
after his decease, to my own right male heirs for

Birth and Baptism. LAT

evere and so, from heir to heir, to be left so long
as it shall please God of His goodness to continue
any Heir male of my name, desiring that the same
jewell be not conceded nor sold by any of them,’

The custom, again, of naming the day and hour
of birth is often duly chronicled, in order to give
facility to the astrologer in ‘casting a nativity’ or
telling the future fortune of a child, should it
bemeesired At the close of the register of the
chapelry of Stretford such entries are to be found,
and in that of Hawstead, Suffolk, it is stated that
‘Mr Robert Drury, the first sonne of Mr. William
Drury, Esq, was born 30 Jan betwixt four and
five of the Clock in the morning, the sunne in
Libra, anno 1574, at Durham House, within the
parish of Westminster.’

In illustration of this practice may be quoted
another entry from Eaton register, Rutlandshire :

e Wr Henry Hastings, Son and Heir
of Mr. Francis Hastings, was born on St. Mark’s
yen, Mypril 24, between the hours of ten and
Eleven of the clock at night, Sign Sagit: Secund:
die pleni lunii Marte in Taurum intrato die pre-
cedente ; and was christened May 17.’

And in the register of Carshalton, Surrey, under
the year 1609, this memorandum is given:

‘Henry Burton, the son of M: Henry Burton,
knight of the honorable Order of the bath was
borne the first day of November 1609 about
Seavien of the Clocke at night, and baptized the
Twelft day of the same month.’

And to give one further case, there is this very
full entry in the register of St. Edmund’ s, Dudley:

122 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

“1539. Samuell, son of Sir Wilham’ Sauthe
Clarke, Vicare of Duddly, was born on Friday
morninge, at 4 of the Clock, being the xxvilj day
of February, the signe of that day was the middle
of aquaris Q ; the signe of the monthe %; the
plenet of that day 2 ; plenet of the same ower ¥
and the morow day whose name hath continued in
Duddly from the Conqueste.’

Occasionally the parson has embellished his
register with poetical effusions, and in the early
part of the register of Ockley, Surrey—which
dates from 1539—the Vicar, William Margesson,
has transcribed the following old lines, which it is
suggested, probably are not original, except in the
spelling :

‘The new born infant in the cradle lies, and when it sleeps
not, fills

Our ears with cries. Being grown big with foolish spoorts

(sic) and play,

The first ten years of life are thrown away; yet he Injoyes

Till those ten years are over, That Innocence (sic) which

he must boast no more.

Poor man when Three Score Winters he has told now

places all his hops (sic) in

Bags of Gold.’

And in the register of St. Mary Magdalene,
Canterbury, will be found, under the years 1763,
1764, and 1772, mention of three children whe
were ‘born in the fore part of the housei aihe
families referred to lived most likely on the
northern side of Burgate Street. The houses, it is
said, stand on the boundary dividing the parish of
St. Mary Magdalene, on the south, from the ville
of Christ Church—the precincts of the cathedral

Birth and Baptism. 123

onthe north A child born “in the fore part’
of the house would be born within the city
liberties, and would become a ‘freeman’; but it
born in the back part of the house, or over the
border, it would not be ‘free.’ Hence the im-
portance of distinguishing in which part of the
house a child was born.*

Cases of petty tyranny have occasionally met
with deserved rebuke by being made public for
all time. A memorandum, for instance, in the
Wimbledon register, bearing the date of 1723, 1s
as follows:

‘Susannah, daughter of Moses and Mary
Cooper, Travellers, born in Martin [Merton],
and the poor woman being desirous to have
it baptized, though she had lain in but a week,
carried it in her own arms to Martin Church, to
tender it to me to Baptize it there on Sunday last,
being June ya 30%. But Justice Menton being
informed by the Constable of her being in the
Porch with that intention, went out of his seat in
time of service to her, and took hold of her, and
led her to the Court of his house, being over
against the Church, and shut the gate upon her
and her husband, and let them not out till sermon
and service were over and I was gone home, and
made the man’s mittimus to send him to the house
of correction if he would not cary his wife and
child out of the parish without being Baptized,
and consequently registered there, which being
forced to comply with, she brought up her child

* «Registers of St. Mary Magdalene, Canterbury,’ J. M.
Cowper. Introduction, ix.

124 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

to me, to my house on this day, being Tuesday,
July and, complaining of her hard usage, and
passionately desiring me to Baptize it, which I
did by the name above in the presence of her
husband, my wife, and D" Elir Pitchford. 1723.
EDWARD CoLuIns.’

ke

CE e Per VIL

MARRIAGE.

S an evidence of the altered state of things
after the Reformation, may be quoted the
following extract from the register of Croydon:
magi Oc 25. Reverendi patr Shoes Epus
Wynton duxit Maria Hammond generosa in ista
Ecclesia Coram multitudine pdchianos psente
Revéndissimo pre Thoma Cantuar Archiepo cu
multis, his is a singular entry, for, as it has
been observed, ‘the marriage of a bishop who had
himself, in 1549, written a defence of the marriage
of priests,’ and the presence, too, of Cranmer, now
twice married, and the words ‘cum multitudine’
and ‘cum multis, are no insignificant signs of the
times. Only some twenty years previously poor
Skelton, Poet Laureate, and Rector of Diss, was
found guilty of keeping a concubine, then a far
less crime for a parson than marriage. On his
death-bed the poet declared that he had kept her
as his mistress because he could not marry her,
and they had as religiously kept the marriage as

126 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

though they had been joined man and wife by the
Ghurehe

It is further added that ‘nearly all the clergy
were open to the same charge. But the time was
at hand when men were to be freed from that
forced asceticism which is ever the parent of
debauchery.' ‘Phe ‘cleroye iè cesme, WEE Very
careful in duly entering the ceremony, lest the
validity might at any time be questioned, as the
subjoined entry in the register of Staplehurst, Kent,
shows:

“1549. The ninth day of june, beuno Vie
sunday (wherein the booke of the Common Prayer
and Administration of the Sacraments, and other
Ceremonies and rites of the Churche, after the use
of the Church of England, began to be executed),
there was baptized Marie, the daughter of Richarde,
parsone of this parish chugehe) borni fic ase
Thursday, of his lawful wife Jane, who were
married the yeare before, and in the first day that
the holy Communion, in the English tongue (after
the order that now is), was then ministered ; they
both with others, most humblie and devoutlie
communicating the same. The parsone christened
his own childe.’ The words ‘ lawful wife’ have a
significant meaning, for ‘in those days men’s
opinions were much divided as to the lawfulness
of a priest’s marrying, and the power to do so was
reluctantly given by the legislature; and those
priests who married took special care to declare
their right to do so.”*

During Cromwell’s Protectorate, the Little

* ‘Sussex Archeological Collections,’ vol. iv., pp. 246, 247.

Marriage. 127

Parliament of the year 1653 declared that marriage
was to be merely a civil contract. Accordingly, it
was enacted that the names of parties intending to
be married were to be proclaimed either in church
after morning service on three successive Sundays,
or in the market-place on three successive market-
days, according to the wish of the parties. The pro-
clamation was usually made in the market-place
by the bellman, and as an example of the operation
of this new marriage law, it may be mentioned
that the parish registers of Boston, Lincolnshire,
show that during the years 1656, 1657 and 1658,
respectively, the numbers of marriages proclaimed
in the market-place were 102, 104 and 108, and
of those announced in church, 48, 31 and 52.
cae meneten contains entries of the banns
proclaimed in the open market-place. One of
them certifies that a couple, after the banns had been
three times published in the market-place, and there
being no opposition, were, with the consent of
their parents, married at Alton Pancras on May 7,
1665. This was signed by a justice of the peace.

In the register of Acton this entry occurs:

c Tiursday üne 57 of April, 1655. Richard
Meredith Esquire eldest son of S William Meredith
Oigleeedess im the County of Kent Baronet was
marryed unto Ms Susanna Skippen youngest
daughter to right honourable Major General
Skippen [Traytor] by St John Thoroughgood
[knave] in the publick congregation within the
Parish Church in Acton in the County of Middle-
sex Mr Philip Nye at the same time praying and
Teaching upon that occasion.’

128 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

The words ‘ Traytor’ and ‘ knave ’—here placed
in brackets—were inserted by Dr. Bruno Ryves,
who came in as Rector after the Commonwealth.

But there are im the’ resister ef Maidstone
Kent, memoranda of two exceptions to marriages,
one of which is as follows :

‘ Abraham Hawkes, of East Farleigh, servant to
Thomas Scultup of the same Free Mason, and
Mary Emoett of Boughton Monchalsey, was
published in the market-place in Maidstone upon
May 45, the Tre and” the 13! Wome seem
exception page y® 8#.’

‘Page 8. Lambard Godfrey Esg: doth make
exception to the proceedinge of the marriage of
Abraham Hawkes and Mary Emyott, for that the
said Mary Emyott doth seem to be not of com-
petent understanding to dispose of herself in
marriage.’

‘ The exception made by Labert Godfrey Esq’
against the proceeding to marriage of Abraham
Hawkes and Mary Emeot above said being heard
before Lambert Godfrey aforesaid, George Duke
Richard Beale Esg™ and Justices’ ot the {Peace ot
this County, is satisfied and discharged, and the
marriage of the said Abraham Hawkes and Mary
Emeot aforest was solemnized before the Justices
aforesaid the sixth day of July, 1654.’

But we must not omit to quote a curious and
amusing case of breach of promise noted in the
register of Malmesbury, Wiltshire, in which the
banns were forbidden, although, it seems, the
parties were married afterwards. The memo-
randum gives the facts thus :

Marriage. 129

‘William Waite of Malmesbury, mercer, and
Mary Hobbes of Malmesbury, Spinster, had their
purpose of marriage lawfully published at the
Market Cross in Malmesbury, 3 market dayes,
yiz—]une 13%, June 20 © Jure 27°" 1657.
the said William then living of himself and being
at his own dispose, but being the sonn of Edmond
and Margaret Waite of Malmesbury, and Mary
being the daughter of Anne, then the wife of
M- Hasell, of Cawne, in the Countie of Wiltes,
but the said Mary then living with her uncle,
Mr Henery Greyle, of Malmesbury, Clothier.
Some contradiction there was at the time of
publicdn, which was as followeth: the first time
the parties were published, there was noe interrup-
tion made, but the second day M* Gawen published
them, and having beene out of towne, yet returning
in due time, and not knowing that Mr Gawen
had made a publication, I again published their
purpose of marriage, at which time Thomas Webbe
of Malmesbury, glover, or barber, delivered a
paper into my hands at the Market Crosse in the
behalfe of Alice Webbe his sister, by way of con-
tradiction to the said publication, which paper I
read at that very instant on the Markett Crosse,
where I made the publication. A coppie of the
said contents here followeth, worde by worde :

«« M® Harper, I Alce Webb doe heare that you
have published Wili Waite and Mary Hobbes
in our Markett. I forbid the publicata ontell hee
hath given mee satisfaction. In witness whereof I
sett my hand the 20% June 1657:

“<The Mark X of Arce Wess.”

9

130 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

‘The weeke following M* George Joyce and
Will Shute, both Justices of the Peace, mett at the
White Lion in Malmesbury, and desyring to make
an end of the differences, sent for the parties, viz.
William Waite and Alice Webbe, and heard the
whole business debated, Mr Edmond Waite, John
Goldney, Richard and Robert Webbe being then
present, but noe end could be made. I asked the
Justices whether the exception put in by Alice
Webbe was sufficient to hinder Will Waites pro-
ceedings or noe, they answered, it was not sufficient,
for that the said Alice had not inserted any cause
in pticular in that deniel of hers; whereupon I
proceeded to publish the said Will. and Mary, the
last time being June 27 W657, at wh time on
publication, Richard Webbe of Malmsbury, brother
to the said Alice, in the behalfe of his said
sister, delivered mee a note to be read at the same
place forbidding the said publication; this was
done in the p’sence of Richard Goffe, Thomas
Waters, Tho Baker, Robert Fry and many others.
A true coppie of the note here followeth :

<< ME ROBERT Harper, I Alce Webb on
Malmesbury, in the count of Wiltes, doe forbid
the publicat? of marridge between Will. Waite and
Mary Hobbes, by reason that Will Waight is my
lawful husband by pr’mise. Witness my hand the
26 June, 1657.

‘The Mark X of Arce Wires
‘Hereupon Will Waite, by the advice of Simon

Gawen, summoned Alice Webb to appear at the
Quarter Sessions, held at Warminster, but shee

Marriage. 138

not being well went not in p’son, onely her
brother went in her behalfe, the business was fully
debated in open Courts, and Lawes pleaded on
both sides, but she not being there in p’son,
the Sessions granted an Order for Mr Waite to
marrye any other p’son. A coppie of the order
here followeth :

E Wilts pc. At the General Quarter Sessions
of the publique peace of the Countie aforesaid,
holden at Warminster in the same Countie, the first
day of July, in the year of our Lord God 1657—

‘Upon hearing the differences, and upon
examination of witnesses about the claime of con-
tracte of marriage, between William Waite of
Malmesbury, mercer, and Alice Webb of the same
place, spinster, the Justices of Peace at the p’sent
Sessions assembled, doe adjudge and declare that
the same clayme is not lawful contract, and that
the said Will. Waite is at liberty to marry any
other woman.”

‘Hereupon Will. Waite and Mary Hobbes
aforesaid were marryed by M" Edmund Hobbes
of Westport, Deputy Alderman of the burrough
Of Malmesbury, July 5, 1657, in the psence of
ME Abia Qui, Mi Malxplace Qui, M™ Grayce,
Henery Davis and M" Gawen.’

By the same Act, marriages were not to be
performed by the parson, but by the justices of
the peace, a noted illustration of which revolu-
tionary change is the entry of the marriage of
Cromwell’s daughter in the register of St. Martin’s-
in-the-Fields :

November nr, 1657. ‘These are to Certifie

g—2

132 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

whom it may concerne that, according to the late
Act of Parliament, entuytled an Act touching
marriages, and the registering thereof etc. Publi-
cation was made in the publique meeting-place, in
the Parish Church of the Parish of Martins in the
Fields in the County of Middlesex, upon three
several Lord’s Days, at the Close of the morning
exercise, namely, upon the xxv day of October
MDCLVII, as also upon the i and vit day of
November following, of a marriage agreed upon
between the Honble Robert Rich of Andrew’s
Holborne, and the Right Honorable the Lady
Frances Cromwell, of Martins in the Fields in the
County of Middlesex. All which was fully per-
formed according to the Act, without exception.’

And a further entry adds that they were
‘Married xi. November; MID@IVA mm tie) ane
sence of his highness the Lord Protector, the Right
Honb®® the Earls of Warwick and Newport—
Robert Rich and Mountjoy Blount—the Lord
Strickland, and many others.’

This form of marriage ceremony is further
exemplified in Elvetham register, Hants, where this
record is given:

‘1654, I, A. B. do here in the presence of God,
the searcher of all hearts, take thee C. D. for my
wedded wife, and doe, also, in the presence of
God, promise unto thee to be a loving and a faith-
ful husband. Thomas Patrick of Hartley Witney,
and Lucie Watts of Elvetham, were married before
Robert Reynolds Esq’ in the presence of Ambrose
Iver and Thomas Townsend. March 16*, 1654,
Robert Reynolds, Justice of the Peace.’

Marriage. ie

And the ordinary certificate of a civil marriage
was like the subjoined one, which occurs in the
(eg of Billingborough, Lincolnshire :

Buea 2h Wepy 228) Mic “Richard Voller, of
Billinghborough, in the Countie of Lincoln, was
married at Waillowbee before Master Walley,
Wustiee om tie Peace for the said Counte, unto
Mrs. Elizabeth Brown, of Saltfleetby, Spinster,
according to the Act of Parliament dated the
24*» Augst whereon I did declare them to be man
and wies As im Wimpsfield repister, where a
similar certificate is given, the entry often adds,
‘none gainsaying,’ a statement usually attested by
the parish clerk.

As a further proof of the easy manner in which
marriages were performed in the time of the
Commonwealth, it appears from the following
extracts, taken bom the register of Wartling, that
some regiment was quartered there in the year
1656, and that the officers officiated as the priests
of Hymen:

‘April 24%. Roger Harrison and Elizabeth
Pettit married. They were married by Captaine
lennemi

On June 19 ‘ William Faulkner and Mary
Elizabeth Ainscombe were married by Colonel
John Rusbridge and by Mr. Paul Durande at
Mayfield.’

Aml on July 1 “David lmet and Ceselie
Hammond were married by Capitaine Stapley. *

These civil marriages during the Common-
wealth seem greatly to have exercised the mind of

* “Sussex Archeological Collections,’ vol. iv., p. 287.

134 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

the Vicar of Aldborough, Yorkshire, who, under
‘Marriages,’ made this memorandum on the sub-
Sele 2
‘From the year 1653 ‘ill 1656 which were
made by Cromwel’s justices of the Peace—y* imi
pious and Rebell . . . appointed out of the basest
Hypocrites and dissemblers with God and man—
the manner of whose certificates, that they might
appear to after ages I do here register, one from
Tho Dickinson, whom Cromwel made believe he
had knighted—viz: according to a certificate
written, attested by the Parish Registers with
others: the st W™ Dove and Eliz : Clementshaw
both of the town and Parish of Aldburgh Came
this day before me Mi Sk Thomas Dickinson
Esquire, one of the Justices of the Peace within
the West Riding of the county of York; amc
declared their desire and consente to proceed in
marriage according to the Act in that behalf pro-
vided, whereupon the said W™ Dove did take for
his wife the said Eliz Clementshaw, and the said
Elizabeth Clementshaw did take for her wedded
husband Wil™ Dove with consent of Parents
before me, and in the Presence of Wil™ Burnand,
Thos. Cotton, Edw: Thompson, Nicholas Smith-
son, these witnesses on the seventh day of Feb in
the year of 1653. The good Mican adds @hae
‘Many would not be so marryed, and such for
the meast part as were so mantycd verer alse
marryed in their own Parish Churches by their
ministers.’

It appears, also, that a strong feeling of discon-
tent arose in consequence of the Church marriage

Marriage. 135

ceremony being regarded invalid ; and, by a kind
of compromise, it became customary for marriages
to be solemnized before the Mayor and minister of
the parish conjointliy. Some idea of what the
clergy felt at this violation of the Church’s sacred
rite may be gathered from an entry made by the
parson in Elwick register, Durham: ‘ Maryinge
by justices, election of registers by parishioners,
and the use of ruling elders, first came into fashion
in the time of the Rebellion under that monster of
nature and bludy tyrant, Oliver Cromwell.’ And
a further strange abuse is mentioned by Burn, who
says that ‘the marriages in the Parish of Dale
Abbey were, till a few years previous to the
Marriage Act, solemnized by the Clerk of the
parish, at one shilling each, there being no
minister.’

Turning from the civil to the clerical side of
the marriage ceremony, it would appear that in
olden times the discipline of the Church was
somewhat severe, marriages having been prohibited
during Advent, Lent, and Whitsuntide, as the
following lines—of which there are more than one
version—in the register of Everton, Notts, show :

‘ Advent marriages doth deny,
But Hilary gives the liberty ;
Septuagesima says thee nay,
Eight days from Easter says you may ;
Rogation bids thee to contain,
But Trinity sets thee free again.’

And in a register belonging to Cottenham, this
direction is given as to when matrimony should be
solemnized :

136 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

‘Conjugiu Adventus phibet, Hilariq relaxat ;
Septuagena vetat, sed paschz octava remittet,
Rogamen vetitat, concedit Trina potestas.’

Many of the old almanacks give directions for
marrying, and in one published for the year 1642
are these restrictions:

‘ Times prohibiting marriage this yeer.
‘From the 27 of November till January 13.

‘From Februarie 6 untill April 18.
‘From May 16 until June 5.’

And in the Twickenham register it is recorded,
under the year 1615, that ‘ Christopher Mitchell
and Anne Colcott [were] married June 4, by per-
mission of Sir Richard Chaworth, it being within
the octaves of Pentecost.’

A most important preliminary of marriage in
bygone times was the betrothal or nuptial con-
tract, termed “sponsalia, which generally took
place before a priest, and was always confirmed by
gifts, several allusions to which have been given
by Shakespeare. In “Twelfth Night = (chive
Scene 3) we have a minute description of such a
ceremonial, for when Olivia is hastily espoused to
Sebastian, she says:

‘Now go with me, and with this holy man,
Into the chantry by: there, before him,
And underneath that consecrated roof,
Plight me the full assurance of your faith.’

Although it has not been usual ‘to keep a
register of espousals contracted in facie ecclesie,
one entry of them has been discovered in the

Marriage. TAJ

register of Boughton Monchelsea, Kent ; and in
this case an interval of three years seems to have
elapsed between the espousals and marriage cere-
mony.

Occasionally the marriage contract was regis-
tered in the form of a special covenant, an example
of which may be quoted from the register of
Rothwell, Northamptonshire :

‘1693-4. Wee, Thomas Humphrey, of Thorp-
Waterfield, in y° county of Northampton, and
Elizabeth Bigge, of Broughten, in ye same county,
doe in ye presence of ye Lord Jesus, His Angeles
and people, and all besides here present, solemnly
give up ourselves to one another in y® Lord as
man and wife in a solemn marriage covenant,
promising in y® aforesaid awfull presence, in y°
strength of that grace that is in Christ Jesus, to
discharge all those relative duties belonging to
each of us respectively. In witness whereof we
have set our hands and seales this 20 of February
in ye fifth year of y® reign of our Sovereign Lord
and Lady, William and Mary of England. This
covenant was solemnized in the presence of us,
etc:

And the following covenant in the register of
Bermondsey, dated 1604, further shows how, in
days of old, a man and his wife occasionally made
up a quarrel by mutual forgiveness without having
recourse, as nowadays, to the Divorce Court :

‘The Man’s Speech: “ Elizabeth, my beloved
wife, I am right sorie that I have so longe ab-
sented my sealfe from thee, whereby thou shouldest
be occasioned to take another man to thy hus-

138 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

band. Therefore I do now vowe and promise, in
the sight of God and this Companie, to take
‘theel againe as mine owne and will not onelie
forgive thee, but also dwell with thee, and do
all other duties unto thee as I promised at our
marriage.

‘The Woman’s Speech: “ Ralphe, my beloved
husband, I am right some that 1 have in thy
absence taken another man to be my husband ;
but here, before God and this Companie, I do
renounce and forsake him, and do promise to kepe
my sealfe onelie unto thee duringe life, and to
perform all duties which I first promised unto thee
in our marriage.

‘The Prayer: < Almightie Godt we besecem
Thee to pardon our offences, and give us grace
ever hereafter to live together im (ihy tcane) and
to perform the holie duties of mariage one to
another, accordinge as we are taught in thy holie
word, for thy deare Son’s sake, Jesus. Amen.”

‘1 Aug. 1604. Ralphe Goodchilde ef the
parish of Barkinge in Thames Street, and Eliza-
beth his wife, were agreed to live together, and
thereupon gave their hands one to another, making
either of them a solemn vowe so to do, etc.’

According to Hilton register, Dorsetshire, celi-
bacy was apparently punished in the last century,
for under the year 1739 this entgy is @uem:
‘Ordered that all young unmarried persons above
seventeen years of age do forthwith go to service,
or be proceeded against according to law.’ And
Hawstead register tells how a certain William
Caustone, on account of his marriage, ‘is liable to

Marriage. 139

pay two shillings and sixpence as the King’s duty.’
This payment refers to an Act of Parliament of
William ITI.’s reign already referred to, entitled
‘An Act for granting to his Majesty certain rates
and duties upon Marriages, Births, and Burials,
and upon Bachelors and Widowers, for the term
of five years, for carrying on the war against
France with vigour.’ The tax on marriage was
thus :

eG A

‘ Upon the marriage of every person - 092 6

a A a Duke - - =- 50 © ©

z z a Marquis - - =40 © ©

z an Earl - - = 40) © ©

Bachelors, above 25 years old, yearly - © i ©

Widowers 5 TOLO

A Duke, being bachelar or widower, Jedy -DO ©
A Marquess se Ks 3 =1© © ©°

But this Act, as might naturally be expected,
caused a great deal of friction and discontent, and
every means was adopted to avoid it. It was
undoubtedly arbitrary, and was denounced as an
Exteme and unjust measure. It is made the
subject of a memorandum in the register of
Hawstead :

igen Act takes place 1 October that
imipeses a tax of 32 upon the entry of every
christening, marriage, and burial, except those of
some poor persons particularly circumstanced—a
tax most vexatious to the Clergy, and which, it is
thought, will be unproductive to the State.’

From time immemorial, too, there has been a
popular notion that a man is not liable for his
wife’s debts if he marries her in her shift only,

140 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

and many instances of this having actually taken
place are recorded in register books. A remarkable
entry occurs in the register of St. Chad, Saddle-
worth:

‘On Tuesday sen’night was married, at the
Parochial Chapel of Saddleworth, Abraham Brooks,
as a widower, of about 30 years of age, to Mary
Bradley, a widow of near 70, but as the Bride was
a little in Debt, the Bridegroom obliged her to
be married in her shift, and the weather being
very severe threw her into such a violent fit of
shaking as induced the compassionate minister to
cover her with his coat whilst the marriage was
solemnized.’

The register books at Chiltern All Saints, Wilt-
shire, tell how Anne Selwood was ‘ married in her
smock, without any clothes or head-gear on.’
And at Whitehaven, in 1766, a woman actually
stripped herself to her shift in the church, and in
that condition she stood in the chancel, and was
married. It may be added that as recently as 1844
a woman was married in Lincolnshire enveloped
in a sheet. And some years ago, when a similar
case occurred, the parson, finding nothing in the
rubric about the woman’s dress, thought he
could not refuse to marry her in her chemise
only.

Sometimes the parson has given an interesting
account of the marriage of a deaf and dumb man,
as at St. Martin’s, Leicester, in the year 1576, when
Thomas Tilsye ‘with approbation of the Bishop,
his Commissarye, the Mayor, etc.,’ was married by
signs to Ursula Russel, ‘ laying his hande upon his

Marriage. 14I

hearte, and holdinge up his handes toward heaven.
And to show his continuance to dwell with her till
his lyves ende, he did it by closing his eyes, and
digging out of earth with his foote, and pulling
as though he would ring a bell.’

And another memorandum in the register of
St. Botolph, Aldgate, tells us how ‘ Thomas Speller,
a dumb person, by trade a Smith, of Hatfield
Broadoake, in the county of Essex, and Sarah
Earle, daughter fo. one John Earle, of Great
Paringdon, in the same county, yeoman, were
mative by licence granted by Dr. Edwards,
Chancellor of the Diocese of London, the seventh
day of November, Anno Dni 1618, which licence
aforesaid was granted at the request of Sir Francis
Barrington, Knight, and others of the place above-
named, who by their letters certified Mr. Chan-
cellor that the parents of either of them had given
their consents to the said marriage, and the said
Thomas Speller the dumb parties willingness to
have the same performed, appeared, by taking the
Book of Common Prayer and his licence in one
hand and his bride in the other, and coming to
Mr. John Briggs, our minister and preacher, and
made the best signs he could to show that he was
willing to be married, which was then performed
fecordinglc, And also the said Lord Chief
Justice of the King’s Bench, as Mr. Briggs was
informed, was made acquainted with the said
marriage before it was solemnized, and allowed to
be lawful. This marriage is set down at large,
because we never had the like before.’

Again, not the least curious feature of the

142 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

marriage lore, as told by the parish register, are
the remarks, oftentimes far from complimentary,
made on the bridal couple. Thus, it is recorded
how on June 6, 1734, ‘John Housden, widower,
a gape- mouthed, lazy fellow, and Hannah
Matthews, an old toothless, wriggling hag, both
of Faversham, were trammell’d by licence at the
Cathedral, Sea Salter; and on Aueust 5 i750,
Wm. Parnell and Mary Steed, ‘a doleful and
forbidding, saturnine damsel,’ were married in the
same church. Indeed, all kinds of quaint items,
information respecting the bridal couple, are occa-
sionally given. An entry in the registers of St
Andrews Church, Newcastle, dated August 30,
1639, informs us that ‘An owelld man and a
woman’ were ‘mared: they had 2 boyes that danst
of a rop in the Kasell [ Castle] Yard.’ And another
entry, under September 23, 1641, is to this effect:
‘Thomas Blacket to his dame Marie Grene. She
did love him in his master’s time.’ But it would
seem that newly-married folk did not always value
the sacred rite of matrimony, for an entry in the
same register records how on February g, 1640,
‘Thomas Karr and Joan Lauton [were] marred
one of the Skotes Army and wold pay nothing to
che Chunchi

It is noteworthy that the word ‘spinster ’ never
occurs in the parish registers of Kendal until the
commencement of the eighteenth century, the
words invariably used to signify the female un-
married state being ‘ single woman.’

In the register of Tottenham, the phrase ‘I
publisht an intention of marriage’ is used by the

Marriage. Lass

Mican mom the year 1454 to 1659. ae an
emery under November 29, 1659, records the
marriage of a Mr. Roland Ingram, of St. Martin’s,
Ludgate, and Mrs. Ann Gorst, of Tottenham,
‘their intention of marriage having been first
published in the said Parish Church on 3 Lords
days, no exception being made against the said
marriage on any of the said times of publishing.’

From the Serbergham registers, it would seem
that the consent of parents was required, even
when the bride was over twenty-one, in cases of
marriage by licence. ‘To quote an instance of
this custom, we read that :

‘John Hodgson, of the Parish of St. Mary’s in
the City of Carlisle, Surgeon, aged 32, and Esther
Simpson, of this Parish, Spinster, aged 21, were
married in this Church by License, with consent
of John Simpson, Esquire, Father of the said
Esther, this twelfth Day of December, in the year
L770.

Under 1787 this curious entry occurs :

‘Thomas Furnace, of this Parish, aged —, and
Margaret Wood, of this Parish, likewise aged —,
were married in this Church by license (with con-
sent of Mary McKie, her mother, formerly married
to Daniel Wood deceased) in this Church by
License could not be procured for this couple, as
the girl was a minor, and the Lord High Chan-
cellor her guardian.’

The above was inserted too prematurely ; for
although the ‘Lord High Chancellor’ may well
have objected, the marriage took place :

‘a767. Dhomas Furnace, of this Parish,

ida Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

Yeoman and Widower, aged 53, and Margaret
Wood, of this Parish likewise, Spinster, aged 15,
were married in this Church by Banns this fifth
Day of August, 1787.’

But the disparity of age was sometimes on the
side of the woman, for in the Sheldon register the
following strange entry occurs:

© 6% January, 1753. Whe man About Ayes
of age. Marrd;—Cornelius White and Ellen Dale.
The woman 7o .. - ei¢oncldeny

An account of this curious wedding appeared in
the Derby Mercury of January, 1753:

‘Last Saturday, at the chapel of Sheldon) am
the High Peak of Derbyshire, were solemnized
the nuptials of a widow, gentlewoman, of that
place, of about eighty years of age, to a young
lad—by the consent of his parents—of about four-
teen. As she was rendered incapable of walking
by a complication of disorders, she was carried in
her chair from her house to the chapel, about a
hundred yards distant, attended by a numerous
concourse of people, where the ceremony was
performed with becoming seriousness and devotion,
after which she was reconducted in the same
manner, the musick playing, by her orders, the
Duke of Rutland’s Hornpipe before her ; to which
(as she was disabled from dancing) she beat time
with her hands on her petticoats till she got home,
and then called for her crutches, commanded her
husband to dance, and shuffled herself as well as
she could—the day being spent with the ringing of
the bell and other demonstrations of joy, and the
populace—mostly miners—being soundly drenched
with showers of excellent liquor, etc., that were

Marriage. 145

plentifully poured upon them. The new-married
couple, to consummate their marriage, were at
length put to bed, to the side of which that well-
polished and civilised company were admitted; the
stocking was thrown, the posset drank, and the
whole concluded with all the decorum, decency
and order imaginable.’

It seems that the bride did not live many days
after her marriage, for the subjoined paragraph is
dated for the same month—January, 1753:

‘We are informed that last Sunday died at
Sheldon, near Bakewell, the old gentlewoman who
was married the 6th instant to a young lad, aged
about fourteen. Her corpse was brought to Bake-
well Church on Tuesday last, where she was hand-
somely interred, and a funeral sermon preached on
the occasion to a numerous and crowded audience
by the rev. gentleman who had so lately performed
the nuptial ceremony.’

But sometimes it would seem that the aspirants
to matrimony not only disregarded the law, but
caused the parson to do the same, as the following
entry from one of the Glaisdale registers shows:

‘David Morley and Mary Fenwick mî October
mee py 3s June G7, 1754: then received of the
Rev. M" Robinson, Curate of Glaisdale, the sum
of ten shillings as an acknowledgment for his
having infringed upon the Parish Church of
Danby, marrying the said David Morley, though
by a surrogate’s license, in the said Chapel of
Glaisdale, without leave or a Certificate first
obtained from the Curate of the Parish of Danby
aforesaid. I say, received by me—James Deason,

IO

146 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

Minister of Danby. P.S.—Mr. Robinson had but
five shillings for marrying, and yet thought he
came off well with being only five shillings out of
pocket.—J. D.’

We may note that, in Lambeth parish register,
under the year 1569, it is recorded that em
May 11 John Waters and Isabel Denam, both
£ servantes to my lord’s Grace of Canterbury,’
were married ‘ without banes by his command.’

Occasionally marriage entries are made in rhyme,
an example of which we quote from the Greystoke
registers, under October 25, 1665 :

‘What time brings forth there’s none that can p’sage
John Todhunter, of eighty yeares of age,
Married to Agnes Strickett, who’s supposed to be
A virgin, and her age is sixty-three.
Both of this parish, wè causes admiration—
The like hath scarce been known within this station.’

And a memorandum in the register of AU-
hallows, London Wall, ‘ must,’ writes Malcolm in
his ‘Londinium Redivivum’ (ii. 69), ‘relax the
features of the gravest reader.’ It runs thus:

‘The last marriage is Feb. 2, 1580-1 ; the next
Aprill 30, 1581. Here endeth the yeare of oure
Lorde 1580 ; and hereafter foloweth the yeare of
oure Lord 1581, and is as in the next leaf is to be
seen. So that there is no more marriages than ye
here see; and therefore doth make they are so to
end, and the other so to begynn : not that begyn-
nyng and endyng of the yere is so, but that the one
is the last that was in that yere, and the other the

first that was to begynne the other yere, which is
as foloweth : 1581, etc.’

CHARRER VIIM

DEATH AND FHE GRAVE.

PART from its importance as recording the
deaths ‘ of all sorts and conditions’ of men,
the parish register illustrates in a unique manner
the historical lore associated with man’s exit from
the world. Little incidents, too, and fragments of
gossip relating to the burial usages of the past are
here briefly chronicled, oftentimes throwing light
on the domestic life of the past.

Thus, amongst some of the many curious scenes
witnessed at funerals, we are told in the register
of Christchurch, Hants, how a certain Christina
Steevens was ‘buried by women’ on April 14,
1604, ‘for she was a papishe’; and at Bishop
Middleham, Durham, ‘a Scotsman and soldier,
dying at Cornforth, the soldiers themselves buried
him without any minister, or any prayers over
him, on the 4 November, 1644.’ Entries of this
kind are by no means infrequent, and those
relating to the interment of excommunicated
persons are equally strange. In an appendix, for

10—2

148 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

instance, to the register of Pentrobin, Flintshire, it
is recorded how ‘a single woman, though excom-
municated, was on this day, within night, on
account of some particular circumstances alleged
by neighbours of credit in her favour—as to her
resolving to come and reconcile herself, and do
penance if she recovered—indulged by being in-
terred on the “ backside the Church, but no service
or tolling allowed.”’ The term ‘backside’ pro-
bably alludes to the north side of the churchyard,
which was oftentimes left unconsecrated for the
burial of excommunicated persons. One entry
speaks of a woman ‘being buried in a field, as un-
worthy of burial’; and old Fuller tells us (1545)
that formerly a plot of ground, ‘farre from the
Parish Church, was set apart for the women from
the stews in Southwark, called the Single Women’s
Church Yards

Again, an entry in the register of Weedon
Beck, Northamptonshire, informs us how ‘ William
Radhouse the Elder, dying excom*, was buried
by stealthe, in the night time, in ye churchyard,
y° 29" day of January, 1615, whereupon y° Church
was interdicted a fortnight.’ The mention here of
burial by night reminds us that such a practice
was observed for the sake of secrecy ; but, not-
withstanding every precaution, such funerals were
occasionally the scene of much disorder. Another
allusion to this custom may be noticed in the
register of Bruton, under June 6, 1688: ‘The
Right Honble. Charles Lord Viscount Fitz
Harding, was between twelve and one of the clock
in the night, after a sermon preached, buried in a

Death and the Grave. 149

vault in the Church, in a coffin of lead And in
the registers of Toddington, Bedfordshire, it is
recorded how ‘ Honoratissimus, D.D. Thomas
Wentworth, Comes Cliniz fidelissimus regis sub-
ditus patronus meus multis hominibus colendus
sepultus erat in crypta circiter, Nov. 9. Nocte
mipel 4° (1607). An entry in the register of
Kensington records that, in the year 1619, ‘ Robert
Fen the Elder, Esq., an eminent household servant
to Queen Elizabeth, and unto our most gracious
King James a faithful professor of true religion,
and a most charitable friend to the poor, of the
age of 77, was buried on Friday night, at 10 o'clock,
April 23.’ And in the register of Bedwyn Magna,
Wiltshire, it is recorded that, in the year 1660,
‘William, Duke of Somerset, late Marquis of
Hartforde, was buried on the feast of All Saints
Be mehe being the first day of Nove.:

In the Gentleman's Magazine (1817, |xxxvi.,
part il., 13) an account is given of the funeral of
the Duchess of Northumberland in the year 1782,
which it is stated ‘took place by torchlight at four
in the morning, to avoid the mischief of too great
a number of persons interrupting the same; which,
however, was not the case, as the concourse of
people was so numerous at the screens to the small
chapels surrounding the south side of the choir
that many had their legs and arms broken, and
were otherwise much bruised. From this time no
burials have been performed by torchlight except
royal ones, a sufficient guard attending to keep
orden on the occasion. And an entry in the
registers of Hawstead, under the year 1624, runs

150 Social Life as Told by Partsh Registers.

as follows: ‘The buryall of the right worshipfull
lady the lady Anne Drury, widow, once the wife
of the right worshipfull Sir Robert Drury, lord
of Hawstead. Shee dyed in Hardwick House,
5 June, about ten o’clock in the night, and was
buryed in Hawstead Church Chancel, 6 June,
about eleven o’clock in the night.’

In days gone by the law relating to the burial
of suicides was very stringent. In Mayfield
register it is recorded, under the year 1629, how
‘one Will Duke, servant to Jas. Aynscombe
drowned himself on the 28 April, but was not
buried with Christian burial’; and a note in Godal-
ming register tells how on April 9, 1608, ‘ was
buried at lannaways Crosse a stranger, w° hanged
himselfe at John Deniers howse):) Indeed! co
strictly was this rule enforced in cases of suicide,
that in the following instance at Granchester, in
Cambridgeshire, where the case seems to have been
one of insanity, it was even carried into effect :
‘Edwardus Ward, infans Edwardi, cujus mater
cum ferro inhumanissime eum interfecit, eodemque
tempore et instrumento eodem seipsam vita spoli-
avit Infans in cemeterio est Scpultus; mater
vero, quasi Christiana sepultura indigna, sepulta
fuit in agro, 1640.* And in the register of Frant,
Sussex, there is a still stronger case in which the
party had been declared insane by the coroner’s
inquest: ‘Dunstan Fordman was interred without
the service of the Church, having laid violent
hands on himself, and having been returned by

* See ‘Sussex Archzological Collections,’ vol. iv., pp. 257,258.

Death and the Grave. ia

the jury ‘Non compos mentis.”’ Shakespeare
speaks of this law in the case of poor Ophelia :

“ Laertes. What ceremony else?

Priest. Her obsequies have been as far enlarged
As we have warranty: her death was doubtful ;
And, that but great command o’ersways the order,
She should in ground unsanctified have lodged
Till the last trumpet ; for charitable prayers,
Shards, flints, and pebbles, should be thrown on her,
Yet here she is allowed her virgin crants,

Her maiden strewnments, and the bringing home
Of bell and burial.
Laertes. Must there no more be done?
Priest. No more be done !
We should profane the service of the dead,
To sing a requiem, and such rest to her,
As to peace parted souls.’

In the register of Blatchington it is recorded
that in the year 1653 ‘Sarah Reynolds, servant,
came to an untimely end, as it was thought, May
the 1** at night, for from that time she was not
seen living, and she was then found in a pond at
the lower end of the parish ; she was laid in the
ground the 5t June.’ And a similar case happened
at Newhaven, when a mother, whose child had
died and was buried, drowned herself two days
afterwards in the harbour, and was refused Christian
burial.

But the register of Wadhurst informs us that
occasionally the rites of burial were forfeited on
account of the person dying of some infectious
disease, as happened on November 1, 1674, when
a woman named Damaris, the wife of Robert
Gower, was buried, ‘ Sine exequtis non ob malum

152 Soctal Life as Told by Parish Registers.

morale sed ob infectionem morbillorum ’—a good
Christian. *

In the reign of Elizabeth it was customary to
bury merely 1 in a winding-sheet, without any coffin.
The register of Poynings, Sreser tells us how on
‘the eighteenth day of April, 1608, was buried
John Skerry, a poore man, that died in the
place stable, and being brought half naked with
his face bare, the parson would not bury him so,
but first he gave a sheete, and caused him to be
sacked therein, and they buried him more Christian-
like, being much grieved to see him brought so
unto the grave ; and at this time did one Thatcher
dwell at the place.’ The parson’s indignation was
probably roused not because the body was brought
ital ga winding- -sheet, but on account of the insufh-
ciency of it.

In the register of Great and Little Abingdon
this entry is given, a curious combination of
business and sentiment :

‘Burial without a coffin, 1°; for a grave in the
church, 6° 84; ín the chancel 192 AS Bun the
most honourable Grave of any man whatsoever is
in the Churchyard, because that shows most honour
to Godis house. The great first Christian Emperor
Constantine, and many of his successors, were
buried in the Churchyard.’

On the other hand, the register of St. Michael’s,
Lichfield, in 1632 states, as something worthy of
note, ‘that Andrew, the sonne of William Burnes,
was buried with a coffin.’

Then there were the so-called ‘solemn burials,’

* ‘Sussex Archeological Collections,’ vol. iv., P. 277.

Death and the Grave. 153

which seem to have been attended with much
pomp and ceremony, and oftentimes the prepara-
tions were so extensive that the funeral had to be
postponed for several weeks after the interment.
In the parish of Iselham, Cambridge, under the
Hetwe soo. this entry occurs: ‘Mr. Robert
Peyton, Esquier, died 19 Oct., and was solemnly
buried 12 Nov. next morning.’ Such ‘solemn
burials’ no doubt consisted of the funeral sermon,
with a display of the hearse, adorned with aoee]
ensigns, etc. ; at the same time the wine, wafers,
gloves, and rosemary were probably distributed,

A memorandum in the register of Stock Har-
ward, Essex, under 1642, runs thus:

‘That vertuous: religious: humble: and trulie
Charitable Gentlewoman, M" Juliet Coo, the wife
of William Coo Esquire, departed this mortal life
in the Cittie of London on Wednesday May 18.
And was from thence conveyed in a coach to this
towne where she dwelt; and was there solemnly
interred (as beseemed her ranke), in the Chancell
belonging to this Parish Church on Friday
May 20; where her worth and eminent vertues
(to her eternall memory) were both elegantlie and
trulie related in a learned-funerall-sermon, by that
Reverend man of God Mr. William Pindar, rector
there:

And, to quote another case, the register of St.
Bartholomew, Broad Street, records under 1581
the burial of Mr. Francis Bowyer, Alderman, in
St. Michael’s Church ; but, it adds, the ‘ solemn aes
of his funeral were ministered in fis, the 7‘ of
August.’

154 Soctal Life as Told by Parish Registers.

And a memorandum in the register of Cople,
Bedfordshire, tells how Nicholas Luke, who died
on July 4, 1613, ‘att Rouney, was buried the 5%
July in the north Chauncell of Cople, whose
funerall was kepte wt great solemnitie the 4
day of August ensueinge.’

When a person of distinction died, the funeral
service was frequently performed—with an effigy
of the deceased—in the various churches with
which he had been connected, and such a funeral
was entered in the parish register; and when
persons of rank died in one parish and were buried
in another, it was the usual custom to record the
burial in the registers of both parishes.

Again, the following interesting entry in Hilling-
don registers throws some light on the burial
usages of the past:

‘Anno. 1663. July.6. This day the Hearse of
the late Archbishop of Canterbury, some time
Lord High Tresurer of England, going to Oxford,
where he was to be interred, had Buriall here
offered by mee, meeting it at the Church gate
with the service book, a surplice and heed
attended with the Clark, and the great bell
solemnly tolling all the while, according to the
ancient and laudable custom in like cases,’

As it has been observed,* ‘we might suppose
that the vicar intended to pay special reverence to
the body of the Archbishop—better known as
Bishop—Juxon, the loyal and devout prelate who
performed the last religious offices for Charles I.
on the scaffold. But the words used, “ according

* The Antiguary, vol. xviii., pp. 64, 65.

Death and the Grave. 155

to the ancient and laudable custom in such cases,”
exclude this idea. The probable explanation is
that it is the record of a claim for burial fees, ‘ for
aos time, Says Mr. Waters, ‘there was a
marked revival of all kinds of obsolete claims,
arising out of Archbishop Laud’s zeal for ritual
observance,’ and this view is supported by the
following note in the Anziquary :

‘An executor of a gentleman whose body was
carried for burial to a distant church through
several parishes had to pay the fees for burial and
for tolling the bell in each parish. It was the
custom, I would suggest, that to insure the pay-
ment the vicar made all the arrangements named,
nee coed the bell and appeared vested, for |
fancy that unless the bell was tolled actually,
custom could not be urged.” The argument
would be, ‘‘ We are ready to offer you Christian
burial, and therefore you must pay the fees.” ’

And in the parish register of Tregaron, Cardi-
ganshire, among the customary fees formerly paid
by the inhabitants on various occasions, the
following was due to the parish clerk in case of
a funeral :

< At the death of every marryed man and woman
her is =... to ye Clerk of y® man’s wearing
apparel, his best hat and his best shoes and stock-
ings, and from every woman her head flannen or
hood, and her best shoes and stockings, beside
what is due for digging of their graves.’

In the Kendal parish registers the circumstance
of a pauper being unable to pay the burial fees is
noticed, his unfortunate, helpless condition being

156 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

thus referred to: ‘ And one man child brought up
in the town which no man could show who ought
him buried.’

The law of Edward VI. for enforcing the removal
of the aged poor to the place of their birth, or last
residence—an act which was sometimes attended
with fatal results—is noticed in the register of
Staplehurst :

‘1578, There was comytted to the earth the
body of one Johan Longley, who died in the
highway as she was carried on horseback to have
been conveyed from officer to officer, till she should
have com to the parish Rayershe.’

Then there was the mortuary fee, an arbitrary
exaction forbidden by 21 Henry VIII, and which
was actually at times levied on those who at death
had no property in goods or chattels. But although
the levying of these mortuaries or corse presents
‘from travelling or wayfaring men in the places
where they fortuned to die’ was expressly for-
bidden by statute, the law seems oftentimes to
have been disregarded. Thus, the Rector of Ripe,
Sussex, tells us how on February 22, 1634, he
buried one Alice Whitesides, ‘who, being but one
weeke in the parishe of Ripe, died as a stranger,
for whose mortuary, I, John Goffe, had a gown of
Elizabeth her daughter, price 10%.’

On another occasion the same parson has made
this entry :

‘William Wade, who died as a stranger, for
whose mortuary, I, John Goffe, Parson of Rype,
had his upper garment, which was an old coate,
and I receaved for the same 6%,’

Death and the Grave. r57

Among further entries relating to mortuary fees
the subjoined occurs in the register of Ockley,
Surrey :

‘I recd of M!” Worsfold, nephew of M* Wors-
fold of Lye field, ten shillings for a mortuary on
the 26 August 1733, on account of the Death of
his uncle who was buried at Ewhurst.’

Received i March rot 1779, ten shillings
mortuary six and eightpence breach of ground and
one guinea for a funeral sermon, and on account
of the burial of William Margesson, Esq a
ornament to his good family.’

And a memorandum in the register of Ald-
borough, Yorkshire, tells us that ‘the vicarage
of Burg is endowed with all the oblations of
parishioners, and with mortuaries, except living
cattle ; 1t also hath the tithe of orchards and
virgults, and the increase of cattle, except of wool
and lambs ; in which respect the vicar shall cause
the mother Church, with its chapels of Dunsford
and Broughbridge to be honestly served.’ At
Uxbridge an executor gives £20 in money, ‘ one
fyne towell, two pairs of fyne sheets, and a pent
-house beeve.’

Once more, a memorandum in the register of
Aldborough, Yorkshire, respecting burials, runs
thus =*

‘If any recusant not being excommunicated
shall be buryed in any place but in church or
churchyard, his executors shall forfitt thirtie pounds
by statute, therefore I conceive you ought to
burie him, but let it be according to the forme of

* See Yorkshire Archeological Fournal, vol. ix., p. 196.

158 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

the Church of England, these directions were sent
under Doctor Burwell’s own hand, Aug. 18, 1663,
when S Thomas Tanckird was to bee buried.’

During the reign of Charles II. a singular Act
was passed, which has left a conspicuous mark on
parish records, The object of this Act was to
‘lessen the importation of linen from beyond the
seas, and to encourage the woollen manufacture of
this kingdom’; and on this account it provided
that the dead should be buried in woollen only.
Compliance with its requirements was often noted
in the registers; and a prejudice still existing
among the lower classes in favour of shrouds made
of flannel is no doubt an outgrowth from the now
obsolete compulsory usage of two hundred years
ago.* But the higher classes disliked the Act,
and tried as much as possible to evade the law, a
fact which is notified in many of the parish
registers. Pope, it may be remembered, wrote of
Mrs. Oldfield, who was buried in Westminster
Abbey in a Brussels lace headdress, a holland shift
with tucker, and double ruffles of the same lace,
and a pair of new kid gloves, these lines :

<“ Odious ! in woollen! ’twould a saint provoke !”
(Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke) ;
“No, let a charming chintz and Brussels lace
Wrap my cold limbs, and shade my lifeless face.” ?

In the register of St. Mary le Bow, Durham, it
is entered that ‘Christopher Bell, Gent., was lapped
in linen, Rontrary to the late Act; Wee, TE
and numerous entries to the same effect occur

* See Cornhill Magazine, ‘The Story of the Registers,’
ISTO), VAL sah, je, 320

Death and the Grave. EG

elsewhere. At Harmondsworth, in 1726, it is
noted that six guineas and fifty shillings were given
to the poor for a burial in linen ; and at Hayes that
an informer—who would have half the fine—gave
sworn information of one who had been buried in
a coffin with velvet ; of another, that she left in
her will that she should be buried in linen, and
had her desire. And in the register of Aldborough,
Markshine, under 1716, 1s this entry: < The In-
formation of Margaret Robinson, made on Oath
before Mt Thomas Wilkinson, her grandchild,
fae she the said Ma Elz: Wilkinson was
buryed in Linning on the fifth day of Feb: 1717,
contrary to the Act of Parliament for bureying in
woolen.’

On the other hand, there are frequently found
in parish registers ‘lists of the affidavits brought,
in pursuance of the Act, to the clergyman on the
burial of individuals of their being shrouded in
linen ; and these often afford information not to
be met with in the registers themselves. * A
specimen of one of these affidavits we quote below:

Deca 2o 1760, recd this affidavit. Com.
Lanc. Manchester, Dec. 20, 1718, which day Ann
wife of Sam! Hampson of Stretford, in the parish
of Manchester, Thatcher made oath y* the body
of Sarah wife of Tho. Tipping, of the township
and parish aforesaid, Husbandman, lately deceased
(December 14), was interr’d according to the Act
of Parliament for burying in wollen.’ f

And the following form of oath taken on such

@ ac.“ Enston of Parish Registers,’ p. 29.
t Reliquary, vol. |xxiil., p. 93.

160 Social Life as Told by Parish Regtsters.

an occasion is duly registered in the church books
of Frant :

‘John Beale, of the parish of Frant, labourer,
maketh oath that the corps of a child of his, lately
deceased, was not putt in, wrapt, or wound up, or
buried, in any shirt, shift, sheet, or shroud, made
or mingled with flax, hemp, silk, or hair, gold, or
silver, or other than what is made of sheep’s wool,
nor in any coffin lined or cased with any cloth,
stuff, or any other thing whatsoever made or
mingled with flax, hemp, silk, hair, gold or silver,
or any other material but sheep’s wool only.
1678.’

The custom of taking out the heart of the
deceased and burying it apart from the body has
prevailed even up to recent times. Oftentimes,
too, when it was desired to remove the body toa
great distance for burial, it was considered neces-
sary to deprive it of its internals, which were
generally buried where the person happened to die.
In the register of Norton, Durham, this memo-
randum is given under March 225 1756 “bur:
the heart and bowells of the right honorable James
Earl of Wemyss. The remains were buried with
his ancestors at Wemys Castle, in Scotland, the
gth day of April.’ Am entry im the moreg of
St. Mary’s, Reading, under 1631, records the death
of Sir Edward Clarke, Knight, Steward of Reading,
and adds, ‘his bowells interred in St. Marie’s,
his body carried to Dorchester, in Oxfordshire,
Jan. 11.’ It ts said. that lenny Spencer, Panlok
Sunderland, who received his death wound at the
fatal Battle of Newbury, ‘ was buried in the Church

Death and the Grave. 161

at Brington, which is the parish of Althorp, the
family seat. This, however, does not appear to be
at all certain, as thes is no entry in the register
recording the fact ; but a leaden drum deposited
in a vault in the shaman’ is supposed to contain his
heart. his case has no inscription, or even date,
Hpom it~ he resister of Denham informs us
that tie heart of Sir Robert. Peckham, Knight,
was ‘ buried in the vault under the chappell.’

In pursuance of the same fashion, it is recorded
in the Richmond register, Surrey, ae et November
te 0 509) that “M™= Elizabeth Ratcliffeone of the
maids of honor died, and her bowells buried in
the Chancell at Richmond.’ In the register, again,
of St. Bridget, Farringdon Without, under
April 20, 1608, it is recorded that ‘the bowells of
the right hon. lord treasurer, Thomas Sackville,
Earl of Dorset were interred.’ Another entry in
the register of St. Dunstan’s-in-the-West states
Gage on December 8, 1651, ‘the bowells of the
Right Hon. Elizabeth Countess of Kent was buried
at the upper end of the Chancel, who died ye 7
ef this month; And under July 24, 1600, this
entry occurs: ‘Sir Anthony Paulet, Knight, died
at Kew, whose bowells were interred at Rich-
mounte.’ Sir Anthony Poulet was made Governor
of the Isle of Jersey on the death of his father,
September 26, 1588, and was Captain of the Guard
to Queen Elizabeth, who conferred the honour of
knighthood upon him.f

* ¢Enshrined Hearts of Warriors and Illustrious People,’
Emily Sophia Hartshorne, p. 292.

+ See ‘Surrey Archzological Society’s Proceedings,’ 1864,
voli m. p- 84-

; Ter

162 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

In many registers great care was taken to give
the exact position of the person buried, a practice
which gave rise to such entries being made in a
somewhat quaint fashion, Thus, under March 25,
1720, the Greensted register informs us that “ John
Pool of Sayers was buryed in woollen June 13%
1720 under the seats near the Isle on the north
side of the Church his fect lye to the herd sam
Mr’ Glascock his father whoge feet reach within a
foot of the Desk.” And unden 17270 it 1s staeem
that ‘Nicholas son of John Clarke Esq™ aged
about 21 months was buryed in woollen as p.
affidavit, Deci y* 21%* 1721 his corpse was set upon
the feet of his mother’s in the new vault, who dyed
in childbed of this son as above the time buryed.’

Likewise, oftentimes full particulars are given as
to the iad of grave in which the person was
interred. In the same parish, for instance, = Me
Thomas Wragg Clerk was buryed in woollen
Sep: the 10 1723 at the East Ene onsen
Churcyard w'® in 5 foot of the Pales over ag* the
Chancell window. The grave work’t up with
Brick 3 foot high then covered with Plank and
Earth upon it.’ Notices of this kind are very
common, and are interesting as illustrating in-
dividual eccentricities.

In the registers of St. Mary-on-the-Hill, Chester,
‘it is noteworthy that in the burials the exact
situation in the church or churchyard in which the
interments were made is carefully set out ’;* and in
a measure this also applies to some of the burial

* “Notes on the Ancient Parish Books of the Church of
St. Mary-on the-Hill,’ J. P. Earwaker, 1887.

Death and the Grave. 163

entries in the register of St. Alphage, Canterbury.
In the year 1561, for instance, Mrs. Lovelace was
buried in the church before the door going into
the choir; and in the same year Nicholas Lovelace
was buried behind his sister, before the choir door.
In 1578 the wife of Thomas Rolfe was interred in
the church ‘in the first pace,’ by which is probably
meant the porch; and in the next year William
Toddye was buried ‘in the second pace, near the
font, which would be at the west end of the
church, before the porch (under the tower). In
1656 Roger Sympson was interred ‘in the North
Aisle going into the Ministers Chancel’; and in
tes? jane Roberts’ was buried in ‘Sir John’s
bewie om entry in the register of Theydon
Mount, Essex, records the burial, on September
a oo, of “Grace, dau’ of Sir John Lloyd,
Baronet. She lies buried in the entrance of the
chancel on the right hand, under the seat where
the menservants or Hill Hall used to sit. Died of
y° plague.’ In the register of St. Mary Magdalene,
Canterbury, it is stated that in 1709 John Paris
was buried ‘hard by the meeting table’; and in
the year 1713 a body was buried « by the meeting
table,’ the Communion Table being probably
meant.

- At the end of one of the register-books of
North Marston is this memorandum : ‘Jan. 29%
Ed. Oviat, an obstinate absentee, who would not
be buried in ye Churchyard, but in his orchard.’
The year is not stated, but the entry appears to

* «Registers of St. Alphage, Canterbury,’ J]. M. Cowper,
Introduction, p. xviii.
=a

164 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

have been made in the handwriting of the Rev.
Purchas Deuchfield, who was presented to the
living in 1742, and died in 1774. It is said, too,
that his widow was buried in a similar manner.

Burials in gardens, however, have occurred from
time to time, and the register of Toddington,
Berkshire, has this entry- Sroye. (Nes) ae
Thomas Matthew, died the 12 day of November
and was buried the 14% day of November
1658 in his garden late taken out of his orchard.’
It may be noted that the first grave of the cele-
brated John Wilkinson, known in his day as ‘the
great ironmaster and the Father of the Iron trade,’
was in his own garden at Castlehead, and his last
in the quiet little churchyard at Lendal-in-Cartmel.
In giving an account of Dr. William Bentley, a
celebrated physician, who died September 13,
1680, and was buried at Northwich, Ormerod's
‘ History of Cheshire’ mentions that ‘the body of
Dr. Bentley is interred in a vault at the summit of
the garden, where his tomb was discovered in taking
down a summer-house built over it.’

In St. Peter's, Cornhill, under October 23, 1594,
this memorandum is given:

< William Ashboold, soune of M" William *Ash-
boold, Parson of this Church, a toward young
child, and my scholler, he lieth buried in the
Chauncell under a small blewish stone, hard by
the South dore : whose death wroong from me
these suddain verses :

‘ My sweet and little boy, my lif, my joyful sight ;
Thou wast thy father’s earthly joy, and mother’s chief
delight !

Death and the Grave. 165

Though heauy destinyes haue ta’ne thee soone away

Yet enuious death shall give thee ioyes that neuer shall
decay !

Thou wast my scholler deare, but henceforth thou shalt
bee

A scholler of thy Maister Christ through all eternitie.’

And under September 9, 1603, a further entry
records his brother’s death:

‘Fridaie Henrie Ashboold my scholler sonne of
Mr Doctor Ashboold parson of this church, a
youth composed and framed out of the mould of
vertu; for learning and modestie in so yong
yeares admirable, hee lieth buried in the high
Chauncell under a small blewish stone wt his
brother.

‘O happie Henry, thou hast runne thy race—
The graue thie corpes, the heauens thy soule embrace.’

Registers of burial, too, contain many curious
entries, some of which possess a certain humour,
whilst others briefly tell their own pathetic tale.
In Streatham register a touching entry occurs:
‘Dec. 16. 1661. Follie—a strange woman buried’;
and in Ashborn register occurs, under the year
1650, the burial of one Emma, wife of Thomas
Toplis, ‘ who was found delivered of a child after
she had lain two hours in her grave.’

In the register of Wragby, Yorkshire, we meet
with this entry under the year 1542, which is
peculiarly touching : ‘Oone woman dwellinge by
the way wch dyed without any knowledge of
any of the pish dyd chaunge her lyffe the vt day
of June’; and in the register of Wisbech, under
January 2, 1610, this memorandum is given:

166 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

‘Prudence, the wife of William Holliday, a
woman remarkably small, brought four children at
a birth, three males and one female, perfect in all
their features, of whom two as soon as born
expired having quickly measured their course of
this life, and were committed to Christian burial ;
two, being brought for baptism, are bound in the
sacrament of regeneration, namely, Robert the son,
and Elizabeth, the daughter of William Holiday,
washed by solemn rite in the sacred font.’

An entry in the Islington register, recording the
death of ‘Elizabeth Emma Thomas, buried 29%
October, 1808, aged 27,’ relates to the following
curious circumstances which took place on the
interment of this young lady: On Saturday,
October 29, the corpse was brought from Charter-
house Square, and buried in the churchyard. On
the ensuing Monday a headstone was placed over
her grave with this inscription :

‘In memory of
Mrs. ExizaserH Emma ‘THomMas
Who died the 28th October, 1808
Aged 27 years.

“She had no fault save what travellers give the moon:
Her light was lovely, but she died too soon.’

It was hinted that there had been some foul play
with regard to the deceased, grounded on the fact
of her dying, being buried, and a stone erected to
her memory, in the short space of three days.
Accordingly, her body was exhumed, and, on
being examined, a large wire pin, which had been
thrust through the left side of the body, was found
sticking in the heart of the deceased. But ii

Death and the Grave. 107)

appeared in evidence that the deceased, having
been for some time indisposed, had received proper
medical advice, and had at last succumbed to her
disease. Further, that a gentleman with whom
she had lived, being forced to leave for the Conti-
nent, was desirous of seeing her previously interred.
That it was at her own request the pin was inserted
by her medical adviser after the body had been
placed in the coffin, to prevent the possibility of
her being buried alive. These facts having been
proved, the coroner’s jury returned a verdict, ‘ Died
by the visitation of God.’

In the register of Bowes, Yorkshire, it is recorded
how ‘ Rodger Wrightson, jun., and Martha Railton,
both of Bowes,’ were ‘ buried in one grave on 15%
Mancha tied Be died in a fever, and upon
tolling his passing bell, she cryed out, “ My heart
is broke,” and in a few hours expired, purely, as
was supposed, from love, aged about twenty years
each. The melancholy fate of these lovers is
immortalized in Mallet’s ballad of ‘Edwin and
Emma e

‘I feel, I feel, this breaking heart
Beat high against my side;
From her white arm down sunk her head,
She shivering, sighed and died.’

In Arlingham register, under 1763, there is a
singular entry of burial :

‘Stephen Aldridge, who was suffocated by a
flat-fish, which he unadvisedly put betwixt his
teeth when taken out of the net ; but by a sudden
spring it made into his throat, and killed him in

168 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

two minutes. It is here recorded as a warning to
others, to prevent the like accident.’

A memorandum in the old register of Newdi-
gate Church, Surrey, informs us that George :
of the parish of Newdigate, single man, in the
service of Mrs. Glover, ‘ wanting ys feare of God,’
‘did hang himself in her barne’; and in Carshalton
register we are told how ‘Thomas Brown a
Soldier whose death was occasioned in play by
a fork piercing his brain’ was buried on April 26,
1781. A little later on im the same repister tie
burial of John Junior is recorded, April 6, 1792 ;
‘he had just returned from beens: | in apparent
health to Mr. Curtis’s mill, and was putting on
his coat to work when he dropped down dead’;
and on the 22nd of the same month ‘two men
were crushed to death by the falling in of a ceiling
at Mr. Greggs house which was pulling down.’
On August 7, 1768, was buried at Ockley ‘ Allis
Osborn, whose death was occasioned by accidentally
swallowing a thimble’; and in the register of
Aldborough, Yorkshire, under 1836, the burial
on May 1 of one rel Morrel Boro’bridge is
given, who was ‘killed in falling from a tree
when stealing Rooks’; and the death of one of
the parishioners at Skipton, Yorkshire, is recorded
in the following manner: ‘ Burials—Feb. 7. 1684,
John King of Skibdon was found pinyand and
hanged in Haw Park.’*

An entry recorded in the register of St. Martin’s,
Ludgate, as Malcolm remarks in his ‘ Londinium -

* See Nichols, ‘Collectanea Topographica et Genea-
logican 18325 vol me py 200

Death and the Grave. 169

Redivivum’ (iv. 358), ‘may serve as an useful
hint to some surgical or medical reader, who may
learn from it that their predecessors disposed of the
remains of a fellow-creature in a decent and proper
way. Itis as follows: ‘1615. Feb. 28. was buried
an anatomy from the College of Physicians.’ And
we may quote here an entry from Croydon parish
register, dated June 21, 1615, which is quaint :
‘Thomas Afworth, gent., wounded the xvii day
of May, lay long languishinge under the handes of
surgeons unto the xx day of June and then dyed,
and was buried the xxi day, 1615, in the middle
chancel am Croydon Churche. And a further
entry from the same register tells how ‘ James
Mersh pulled ye eagle in ye church upon him, and
cutt his hand, and blead to death, about 8 yeares
old, and [was] buried ye 11. June, 1729.’

Unded May 12, 1611, the register of Saffron
Walden tells how ‘ Martha Warde, a young mayd
coming from Chelmsford on a carte, was over-
whelmed and smothered with certayn clothes which
were in the carte, and was buried here’; and under
September 4, 1623, ‘ buryed a poore man brought
by the Little Chesterford constables to be examined
by the justice ; the justice being a hunting, the
poore man died before his coming home from
hunting.’ It has been suggested that perhaps the
squire had a longer run than usual with the hounds
on this occasion. And under November 18, 1716,
it is recorded that ‘the oulde girle from the work-
house was buried.’

CHAREFER ITX.
SOCIAL USAGES.

ANY of the social usages of bygone cen-
M turies which have long ago fallen into
disuse, and may be reckoned amongst the for-
gotten things of the past, have been preserved in
our parish registers. An important personage,
who by his absurd antics and comic behaviour
excited merriment, not only in the houses of the
wealthy, but even at Court, was the domestic fool,
allusions to whose wit and humour are frequently
to be found in the literature of the period. In
the register of St. Annes. Blackfriars, under
March 21, 1580, the death is recorded of
‘William, fool to my Lady Jerningham.’ And
another entry in the register of Chester-le-Street,
Durham, is to this effect: ‘Ellis Thompson,
Insipiens, Gul Lambton Militis, bu 26 April,
1627.’ It may be noted, however, that this
eccentric individual had not always a very happy
time, for, we are told, ‘if he was too dull, he was
sent away; if too witty, he was sent to the porter

Social Usages. Ie

to be whipped. Sometimes he ran away to escape
punishment, and was brought home like a strayed
dog.’

An entry in the register of Allhallows, Bread
Smeer imforms us that on May 2, 1621, was
baptized William Mackonnell, the son of the
Prince’s foolman, living in Master Repinge’s house
in Red Lion Court. This ‘ foolman,’ says Mal-
eolm in his “Wondinmum Redivivum’ (1803,
li. 10) ‘might perhaps have belonged to Prince
Eemya who. died im the year 1612; but the
motley gentleman entertained Charles, Prince of
Wales, at the time of his son’s birth.’ Shakespeare,
who probably had many an opportunity of con-
versing with such professional merry-makers, no
doubt drew his outline of their character from
personal observation :

« Faques. A fool, a fool ; I met a fool in the forest,
A motley fool ; a miserable world!
As I do live by food, I met a fool,
Who laid him down and bask’d him in the sun,
And rail’d on lady Fortune in good terms,
In good set terms, and yet a motley fool.
“ Good-morrow, fool,”’ quoth I: ‘No, sir,” quoth he,
“Call me not fool, till Heaven hath sent me fortune ;”
And then he drew a dial from his poke,
And, looking on it. with lack-lustre eye,
Says, very wisely, ‘It is ten o'clock :
Thus may we see,” quoth he, “how the world wags ;
?Tis but an hour since it was nine,
And after one hour more, ’twill be eleven ;
And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe,
And then from hour to hour we rot and rot ;
And thereby hangs a tale.” When I did hear
The motley fool thus moral on the time,
My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,

"a

172 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

That fools should be so deep contemplative 5 ;
And I did laugh, sans intermission,
An hour by his dial.’*

An entry in the register of St. Giles’, Cripple-
gate, under February 9, 1604, records the burial
of one ‘ William Fox, son of William Bow
mynstrell.’ Numbers of minstrels lived in this
parish ; they were incorporated by King Edward IV.,
and were frequently admitted to the houses of the
great.

It was formerly customary also for the upper
servants in great households to be ‘ persons of
gentle blood and slender fortune,’ an instance of
which occurs in the register of Allhallows, London
Wall:

“1598, July 20. M: Randall Grew: Counsellos
at the Law in Lincoln's Inn) and Me julie
Clipsbie, gentlewoman attending on my Lady of
Shrewsbury, of this parish, were married.’

Mr. Chester Warters, in his’ s Parish Mepisters:
amongst instances of this usage quotes that of
Catharine, wife of John Willson, who addressed
a petition in the year 1634 to Lord Cottington,
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in which she
states:

‘I am the daughter of George Dyer date au
Grove Park, Warwickshire, who was brother to
your Lordship’s brother. After my father’s death
I was for a while brought up by my uncle, George
Dyer, and by him put te senvice to a Mistress
who by a blow struck on my nose dejected my

* As You Like It; Act wi scene y

Social Usages. i73

femmes im marnage. Ever since I have been
enforced to take hard pains for my living, as my
poor husband does for his.’

And speaking of servants, it would seem that
a bond of apprenticeship was thought worthy of
insertion in the parish register. At Frantfield, as
early as the year 1604, a case’ was entered of a
servant in husbandry as below :

©1604, 20 July. George Job, with his mother’s
consent, put himself apprentice to Thomas Page
of Frantfield, for seven years following, being
bound with seven single pence. The said Thomas
is to teach the said George the full knowledge of
husbandry, and to find him sufficient meat, drink,
and cloth, linen and woollen, hose and shoes, good
lodging, and all things needful for such an appren-
tice, both in sickness and in health, and to double
apparel at the end of his years, and also to give
the said George fourpence every quarter ; and to
this end the said Thomas hath received of widow
Job two good sheep and ten shillings in money.
Also the said George is faithfully, honestly, and
truly to perform the duties of such servant, in
doing his master’s business, in keeping his secrets
lawful to be kept, in not using to ale-houses, nor
unlawful games without his master’s consent, and
all other duties needful for such a servant, and
not to marry without his master’s consent.’

And in the reaister of Elstead, Surrey, is%a
memorandum, dated 1558, probably made by a
son of one of the churchwardens for the time :

oe i knone that | Rycharde Grover have
fully passed out of my yerse of prentyst wyth my

174 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

father Johne Grover all thyngs payde and dys-
charged the xv daye of August.’

Again in the Sebergham registers there is a
curious memorandum, dated “May 13, 1776.
respecting the duties of householders to the parish
in the matter of servants :

‘It is agreed by the sixteen met together the sd
day that no inhabitant within the sd parish shall
take into his or their houses as servants or other-
wise any inmates unles the sd inmates at the same
time bring with them certificates under the hands
of the min" and Churchwardens of y* parishes of
their last abode, and that they will receive them
again ; or that the person wch so receive any such
inmates shall give sufficient security to the parish
to indemnify and have harmless the st parish from
any charg or trouble of the st inmates.’

An interesting instance of an agreement made
by a boy’s parents with his master and adopted
father is recorded in the register of St. Olave’s, Old
Jewry:

‘1591, May 2. Mem: hat illic
Corsse and Mary Corsse do here, in the parish of
St. Olave, this present day, in the presence of us,
whose names are here under-written, willingly,
freely, and voluntarily, give our son, Pasfeld
Corsse, unto John Callcock, of London, Grocer,
as freely as it pleased Almighty God to give him
unto us, the 14 day of Feb. 1586, being Ash
Wednesday, he being five years old and better,
and having been with y° said John Callcock now
one year. And we promise further not to have to
do with our said son Pasfeld during the life of

Social Usages. IE

paean Calleock, otherwise than to be
humble petitioners unto Almighty God for the
health of our said dear son, and the prosperity of
John Callcock his said master. And in witness
of the truth unto these premises we have put our
hands the day and year above said,’ etc.

In the register of St. Mary Magdalene, Canter-
bury, is a fragment of an entry relating apparently
to an agreement to pay half a crown, ‘ beeginning
November the 28, and to continue to the day
TOQ” amel a further memorandum NE hush:
‘November the 18 1692: then John Wingate and
Thomas Smith hatter agreed by the yeare that
Thomas Smith is to find him in hatts for twenty
shillings the yeare during life.’ This bargain was
most likely made at the alehouse, and the parish
clerk, being present, undertook to register the
agreement.

It is noteworthy that many occupations and
trades, some of which have long ceased to exist,
aieepresenved im the patish register. Thus, in
that of St. Oswald, Durham, this entry is given:
‘Ann, daughter of Thane Forcer, Virginal
master, bap. Bebi Toto. Whe term < virginal
master’ is now an obsolete term. The virginal
was an instrument of the spinet kind, made quite
rectangular, like a small pianoforte, ‘probably sO
called from being used by young girls. In an old
play the instrument is thus alluded to: ‘ This was
her schoolmaster, and taught her to play the
pitcindisw = Amc am enthy: im the resisters of
St. Andrew’s, Newcastle, records the burial on

w abloneseaviiote,. tu, 350.

mo Social Li ao as Told by Parish Registers.

May 29, 1646, of ‘ William Smith musician which
dyd in jayl a musician, which techt childre to play
of the virgeners ’ [virginals].

In the register’ of St Peters, Conuhull, ime
‘Wey-House’ is frequently mentioned, with its
officers master portem porter, carter, etc. Stow
informs us that on the north side of Lombard
Street ‘one large house is called the Wey-house,
where merchandizes brought from beyond the seas
are to be weighed at the King’s beame. Sir Thomas
Lovell builded this house, which hee gave to the
Grocers of London.’ ‘Thus, in 1586, on April 9,
there was the ‘Christening of Edward Green
sonne of John Green carter in the Weigh House,
born on the 6% daye of Aprilli being Thursday ’;
and on June 29, 1617, there was ‘ Buried William
Whitlocke y* sonne of Robt Whitlocke one of the
porters of the Kinges Weighowse pit in y° west
yeandii

Nichols, quoting extracts from the registers of
St. Dunstan’s-in-the-West, notices many occupa-
tions as having become obsolete either in effect or
in their designations; as, Robert Dorrington, a
spurrer, buried 1591; Thomas Suelling, imbroduer,
the same year; John Fisher, a shiere grinder,
1592; a comfit-maker, 1597; gonne-makers in
1597 and 1600; Richard Delworth, French hood-
maker, 1601; Henry Bateman, a barber-surgion,
buried September 27; Walter Shrawley, girdler.
In 1590 occurs the trade of pulter (not poulterer),
and frequently that of upholster (not upholsterer).
Water-bearers, again, are of constant occurrence,

and in the year 1603 was buried ‘Daniel Hill,

Social Usages. A7

Pannyer-man of the Middle Temple. Then we
meet with, in the year 1599, a ‘dreaman,’ and in
1600 with an ale bruer An entry in the year
1608 speaks of a ‘ woodmonger,’ and reference is
made to a ‘ tomb-maker.’

pulse Weiter of the Court letter’ was the
designation of a scrivener prior to the grant of the
royal charter in the year 1616, an allusion to
which occurs in the registers of St. Mary Wool-
noth ; and amongst the many other obsolete terms
found in this register may be mentioned ‘ pasteler,’
‘gongfarmer,’ and ‘ pryntagger.’

Another personage who was by virtue of his
trade somewhat notorious in the seventeenth
century was the saltpetre-man, the burial of a man
of this description being recorded in the register of
St. Nicholas’, Durham: ‘ John Haward, Saltpetre-
mat, bur. o Sepe, 1602.’ ‘Before the discovery
and importation of Indian nitre, saltpetre was
manufactured from earth impregnated with animal
matter, and, being the chief ingredient of gun-
powder, was claimed in most countries as a State
monopoly.. Patents for making saltpetre were
expressly exempted in 1624 from the statute
against monopolies, and the saltpetre-man was
empowered to break open all premises, and to dig
up the floors of stables, and even dwelling-houses.’
But this vexatious prerogative of the Crown was
annulled in 1656, when it was enacted that no
saltpetre-man should dig within any houses or
lands without previously obtaining the leave of the
owner.

Then we find ‘ lutenists,’ ‘ fidlers,’ and ‘ musi-

12

178 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

deta spoken of ; and in one register the burial of

‘a singing man’ is mentioned, and in the register
of St. Mary-le-Bow, Durham, there is entered the
burial of ‘Mr. Thomas Edlin, a strainger, one
which taught to dance.’ Occasionally the anti-
quated mode of spelling is noticeable, such as ‘ up-
holster,’ ‘ pictor-maker,’ and ‘aquavity-man,’ or
seller of drams. In days past the term ‘aqua-
vita’ was in use as a general phrase for ardent
spirits, and as such occurs in ‘ Twelfth Night’
(Act II., Scene 5), where Maria asks, ‘ Does it work
upon him?’ to which Sir Toby replies, ‘ Like aqua-
vite with a midwife.’ According to Fosbroke,
aqua-vite was made and sold by barbers and
barber-surgeons. Ben Jonson speaks of selling
‘the dole beer to aqua- vitæ men,’ and in Beau-
mont and Fletcher's ‘Beggar's Bush’ the cry of
the aqua-vitea man is, ‘Buy any brand wine, buy
any brand wine.’ It is such a person who is indi-
cated in the following entry from the register of
St. Giles’s, Cripplegate, where on June 8, 1617,
the burial is recorded of ‘the daughter of Richard
Michell, aquavity-man.’ According to Malcolm,
several aqua-vite dealers lived in this parish, and
he adds that the nature of this beverage may be
imagined from the following ‘Reasons for the
Grauntes unto Mr. Drake, for the making of
aquavite, aqua composita, berevinger, beereeger,
and alliger.

‘ That whereas dyversse of greedye and covetous
myndes, for their owne lucre and gaine—w’hout
the dew regarde of the health and wellfayre of our
subjects, or the p’fit and benefit wh may grow to

Social Usages. 179

us and our Comonwealth, by the trew and right
making of the same of trew and wholsome lyquor
—have, do use make the foresayde drynkes and
sauces of most corrupt, noysom, and lothsom stuff;
viz., the washing tonnes, colebacks, laggedragge,
tylts, and droppings of tappes, and such other
noysom stuff used in tymes past to feed swyne.’

Mention is made in the Nantwich registers of
a resident jockey, dancing-masters, and comedians,
which is interesting, associated as they were with
the gaieties and amusements of the town in former
days ; and in the same registers early notices occur
of the Post-Office, such entries as the following
occurring :

Toen March ta ihemas Cheshire, a letter
bearers Bumed]

Te 04 12.) Mr Roger Mainwaring, Post
maisteri [Buried.]

Grease Reb no Elizabeth, wife of Mathew
Alvaston, foote-post.’ [ Buried. |

The way in which our forefathers occasionally
settled their local differences in days of old is
certainly worthy of imitation nowadays. An
entry in the Twickenham register, dated April 3,
1568, tells us how ‘in the presence of the hole
paryshe of Twycknam was agreement made betwyxt
Mr Packer and his wyffe, and Hewe Rytte and
Sicylye Daye upon the aforesaid Mr. Packer’; and
another entry, of April 10 of the same year,
records a similar agreement made between Thomas
Whytt and James Herne, who ‘have consented
that whosoever geveth occasion of the breaking of
Christian love and charyty betwixt them, to forfeit

I2-—2

180 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

to the poor of the paryshe three shillings and four-
pence, being dewlye proved.’

This wholesome practice of making up quarrels,
without having recourse to law, may be traced to
the fourteenth century, for it is recorded that in
the year 1363, when John de I’Isle, the grandson
of Sir John de Bohun of Midhurst, the patron of
Eastbourne Priory, made proof of his majority,
one of the witnesses deposed that ‘a great quarrel
between John de I'Isle the father and Richard -
Broker was made upon the Sunday after the child
was born, as it is enrolled in the missal of East-
bourne Church.’ The parish priest, therefore,
was in the true sense of the term a peace makem
and when he was successful in making up quarrels
between his angry parishioners, such an event was
often noted in the register.

But, unfortunately, quarrels and disagreements
were not always so amicably settled, as may be
gathered from a curious entry made in the parish
register of Islington, which runs thus: ‘Sir George
Wharton, son of Lord Wharton, was buried, the
rott November, 1609. James Steward Esg
godsonne to King James, was buried the rot
November, 1609.’ These two persons were both
servants to James I., and some reproachful words
having passed between them, they fought a duel
near Islington, and were both killed. It is said
that when the King heard of this sad affair he was
much distressed, and ordered them to be buried in
one grave. ‘There was published at the time ‘a
lamentable Ballad of a Combate lately fought near
London between S" James Steward and St George

Social Usages. 181

Wharton, knights, who were both slaine at that
time.’ But Islington seems to have been remark-
ably fatal to the duellists of that day, for the
following year, under April 22, 1610, an entry
informs us that John Egerton, son of Sir John
Egerton, Knight, was buried. Mr. Egerton was
killed in a duel on April 20, and is said to have
been slain ‘basely by his antagonist one Edward
Morgan who was himself sorely hurt.’*

A singular duel is described in the register of
Tottenham. It appears that on Thursday, being
November 8, ‘there was a meeting of the neigh-
bours to warme Me John Syms, his house, the
Signe of the Swanne at High Cross, among
whom came John Nelham and John Whiston, who
having some grudge or quarrell between them,
dinner being done, they two did use som private
speches within themselves; taking leave of the
company, went to their houses, either of them
taking his pickstafe in their handes, mett in a field
behinde M" Edward Barkham’s house, commonly
caull’d or knowne by the name of Baldwin’s, theare
they two fought till John Nelham receyed a wound
by John Whiston in his throate, fell down dead,
and never spake word after; so the coroner, upon
the Saturdie next sate upon him; was burried the
same daie being the 10" of November, 1610.’

In the register of St. Mary Magdalene, Canter-
bury, under March 8, 1696, this entry occurs:

‘Then Mr Fiche Rooke and a Ensigne his name |
was Antho Buckeredg they fought a duell in the

* Nelson’s ‘History and Antiquities of Islington,’ 1823,
PP- 3345 335.

182 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

North Homlbes and boath dyed in the field :
Colonel name he be : longue to was Marques
Depusaw.’

On this entry Mr. Joseph Meadows Cowper
writes : ‘ ‘* Anthony Buckeridge, an Ensigne,” was
buried in St. Alphage churchyard, March 9, 1696-7,
and Finch Rooke was buried at St Paul's) in
neither case is any reference made to the cause of
death ; and the sole memorial that remains is a
small stone in the wall by the North Holmes.
This stone, much defaced, is near the eastern jamb
of a bricked-up gateway, by which egress was
obtainable from the orchard—now Major Plum-
mer’s—to the footpath leading from St. Martin’s
Church to St. Gregory’s. The inscription on the
Stone, as I read 1t iS as umecn:

July
RooKE
Died 1696
Bucker[idge].

‘So far, I have failed to find any record or
otherwise of the duel. I have been referred to
‘Tales of a Cabin, but the stony mas theren
related is absurdly wrong and utterly valueless,
unless we accept as traditionary the statement that
two men fought in the night and without seconds,
and that nothing was known until their dead
bodies were discovered in the early morning.”*

The following extract from a letter which
appeared in the S/andard is of interest, as referring

* ‘Registers of St. Mary Magdalene, Canterbury.’ Intro-
duction, pp. iv, v.

Social Usages. 183

to a duel, and to the disappearance of the old
register in which it was recorded :

‘In the days of Charles I., Giles Nanfan, who
then resided at the old manor-house of Bistmorton
Court, in this neighbourhood, fought a duel with
the lover of his sister Bridget, and slew him. We
know the “ Bloody Meadow” where the duel was
fought, and how the unfortunate lover was buried
in the Berrow Churchyard, the parish in which he
was killed, and Bridget Nanfan left a charge upon
the “ Bloody Meadow” by will, for the preaching
of a sermon by after incumbents against the sin of
duelling. But we did not know the name of the
lover who was killed, or the time when the duel
took place. Some years ago I went, accompanied
by Sir William Guise, to examine the parish
registers respecting the name and the date of the
burial of Bridget Nanfan’s lover. We found the
entry, and I made a copy, which was lost. Years
diecie acan Ll went with Sic Wm. Guise to
examine the registers of the period, but the book
had disappeared altogether, and was nowhere to be
found.’

Much valuable matter treating of the social life
of the sixteenth century, as far as the poor were
concerned, is found in parish documents. Here,
for instance, is a picture of London life taken from
the registers of St. Dunstan’s-in-the-West :

©1573. Jan. 5. a poore man buryed out of the
pride.’

‘1586. Feb. g a maide buried out of the fielde.’

©1589. March 18 a poor maide that died in the
fielde.’

184 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

©1593. Nov. 20.a childe that died in the fielde.

And other entries speak of women confined ‘ in
the fields’ which surrounded Lincoln’s Inn, where
the poor creatures were in the habit of seeking
shelter ; for, by a mistaken policy, any increase of
building was put down by law.

Gardens, too, in Chancery Lane are frequently
mentioned, and in the year 1609 we meet with
‘the gardens in Fewter Lane.’ Stowe, speaking of
this locality, says: ‘Fewter Lane stretched south
into Fleet Street, by the east end of St. Dunstanes
Church, and is so called of Fewters—or idle
people—lying there, as in a way leading to gardens;
but the same is now of later yeares on both sides
builded thorow with many fair houses.’ Indeed,
as Nichols remarks, ‘not only were there so many
utterly houseless, who encountered their death in
the open air, and several in stables, ‘‘ backsides,”
and outhouses ; but at a time when the increase of
buildings was forbidden, it would appear that the
cellars occasionally formed distinct tenements for
some of the crowded population.’ This was
literally true, for the very cellars were overcrowded,
and we find people dying in the barns and in the
streets, But as early as the year 1557 the severe
distress which was prevalent is shown by such
touching entries in the register of St. Margaret’s,
Westminster, as ‘died of very poverty,’ of ‘very
famine’ after the name.*

Sometimes, as in the Greystoke registers, the
phrase ‘ who died of want of means to live’ occurs,

* See Fraser's Magazine: ‘Parish Registers: their
_ History and Contents,’ September, 1861, p. 362.

Social Usages. 185

ane uneer March 27, 1623, it is recorded, ‘ the
same daye buried a poore hunger sterven begor
child Dorothie the daughter of Henry Patterson,
Miller.’ And another entry in the same register,
dated March, 1584, is to this effect: ‘ Tewsday,
the xii day was buried one ppofer Buckbarrow
w°h went about for god sake.’ The same phrase
occurs again in the year 1602, applied to a ‘ poore
woman’; both were, in all probability, licensed
beggars.

Pensioners, both male and female, occasionally
occur in St. Dones registers, and an almshouse
was established in the Friars, which is mentioned
in the entries below :

Toos june m Apnes Grandige, one of the
sisters of the fryers.’

“1608. July 30. Joane Dennys, vidowe, out of
the almes house in the Friers.’

oor. March 23, Anne Pilsworth, one of the
7 sisters in. the Fryers.’

It may be noted that the Friars—sometimes
designated the White Friars—was the site of the
house of the Carmelites, placed on the south side
of Fleet Street. As a sanctuary for debtors, and
the consequent resort of dissolute characters, it
subsequently became notorious, and under the
slang name of Alsatia its fame has been widely
spread by Sir Walter Scott’s ‘ Fortunes of Nigel.’
It was not, however, entirely given up to the lower
classes ; for, as Stowe says, ‘in place of this Friers
Church, bee now many faire houses builded,
lodgings for noblemen and others.’

Another locality inhabited by very poor persons,

186 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

but not as almsfolk, was called St. Dunstan’s Hall.
Thus, on September 4; 1593, one John’ Miller
was buryed out of St, Dunstan’s Hall; and on
August 18, 1603, ‘Roger Brooke, Waterman, out
of St Dunstanis all =

Occasionally, when any deserving case that
seemed worthy of support was brought under the
parson’s notice, he made a memorandum of the
same in his register. Thus, in one of the Knares-
borough registers there is entered an appeal to the
benevolent from one Richard Coates, which is
couched in the following terms:

‘The bearer Richard Coates, a taylor by his
trade, but being overcharged by a great many
children was forced to take up another method to
get his Bread. Which is so publickly known it
needs no further demonstration. In which way,
for ease and readinesse of going to the adjoin’
markets, he kept a little Horse which was stoln
from him about —— months ago, and not finding
him, by all enquiry he can make, has brought the
Justice of Peace to give him Leave to begg the
Charitable Constitution of this neighbourhood only
to help to gett another. And if you please to
grant this Favour, he, as in duty bound, shall hold
himself under great obligation,’ etc.

But in the same register we find an application
to the Commissioners of H.M. Revenue duly
entered, which is a somewhat unique memorandum.
It runs thus: ‘To the Honble Com" and Gov" of
his Mats Revenues of Excise of Beer ¢7 Malt &e.

* Nichols, ‘Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica,’
vol. vo pp. 3,4

Social Usages. 187

‘These are to certifye that Joseph Leeming in
the p*" of Knaresburgh in the County of York,
is a likely man to make a good officer, is a Brisk
healthy man, not incumbered with debts, a young
man, unmarried, about one-and-twenty years of
age, of a good family, sober life and conversation,
Well-atrected to the prest Goven*, of the Com-
munion of ye Church of England & bred a grocer.
Proposeth for his securities M* James Collins and
M: W™ Broadbett of Knar. aforst: He desires
to be instructed by Bernard Calvert, officer of
Knaresborough.

‘These are to Certifye, whom it may concern
that Joseph, son of Joseph Leeming, was Baptized
at inate ia Morkshire ye 11 day of June 1686,’"*

The number of persons, again, slain in brawls
at inns and taverns, and in the streets, in olden
days, is noteworthy. Thus, referring once more
to the register of St. Dunstan’s-in-the~-West, we
find entries of this kind:

e Aue 22. Tuce, which was slain at
hearnes the Cooke in Chancery Lane.’

©1579. June 20. Mr? Marten which was slain
at Lyons Inne.’

o apa 19. Willim Gifford slane in
Symon Canon’s house.’

Andi on January Se 1595, according to the
registers of St. Mary Woolnoth, William Backe,
‘one of her Majesty’s servauntes of the Guarde
was slaine in the Taverne called by the name of

the Bishopp’s Head.’

* See ‘Yorkshire Registers,’ the Aztiguary, 1882, vol. vi.,
Pp. 190, TOT:

188 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

Under 1610 the register of St. Gregory-by-
Pauls gives this entry: ‘ John Fitzwilliam
servant to Sir Edward Dymmocke, Knight, slain
in a Tavern, buried 14 February, nore.

And after this fashion the entries in our London
registers proceed, proving how powerless was the
arm of the law. Drink is also mentioned as an
evil in the seventeenth century, and the register of
St. Benedict Fink has a curious memorandum, dated
April 23, 1673, concerning the death of = Wig
‘Thomas Sharrow, clothworker, late Churchwarden
of this parish, killed by an accidental fall in a vault,
in London Wall, Amen Corner, by Paternoster
Row, and who it was supposed had lain there eleven
days and nights before anyone could tell where he
was. let all who read this take heed) of citimi
We may compare, too, an entry in the register of
Newington Butts: ‘1689, John Anis and Derwick
Farlin in one grave, being both Dutch soldiers;
one killed the other drinking brandy, buried
Nov. 1%.: And at Rye; under December 2) TORO
a memorandum informs us how Francis Gill and
William Grogervill, two soldiers on guard at Strand-
gate, broke open a cellar, and drank so much
strong waters as made six men dead drunk.
Grogervill never came to himself, and Gill, the
corporal, going his rounds, fell down and broke
his skull. They were buried together in one
grave, no shot fired over them, and no one attend-
ing but the bearers. These men, by thus bringing
themselves to a disgraceful end, were thus buried
‘ without those honours usually paid to meritorious
soldiers.’ Another case is entered in the registers

Social Usages. 189

of Croydon, under 1585, where this memorandum
is given:

Alam “Barker, a comon drunkard and
blasphemer, beinge drinkinge tyll he was drunken,
was found dead on the xix day of September, he
beinge soe he was layd in a grave, and not cov’ed
tyll the xxij day of the same month for the coroner
to vew (¢7 then comed)

And an entry in the register of Burbage, Wilt-
shire, under Hebruary 11, 1648-49, records the
burial of ‘a souldier that had been drinking hot
water and fell off his horse.’

A curious bet, which was attended with a fatal
ending, is recorded in the old register of Hawks-
head, and runs thus:

‘1689. Decr. 16. Bernard Swainson who was
Edward Braithwaites apprentice went with William
Stamper a great while within nights into William
Braithwait shopp in Hawkshead for to beare him
company a little, and at their meeting these three
young youths were all very sober and in good
Neale and: about... o th Clocke o th nmighte
they made a bett that if this Bernard Swainson
could drinke off nyne noggins of Brandy that
William Braithwaite and William Stamper was
to pay for them, but if Bernard fayled and could
not drinke off nyne noggins of Brandy then
hee was to pay of his owne charges for that hee
drunke; now this Bernard drank off those nine
noggins of Brandy quickly, and shortly after that
fell down upon the floore and was straightway
carried to his bed where hee lay five and twenty
hours, during which tyme hee could never speake;

190 Soctal Life as Told by Parish Registers.

nor never did knowe anybody though many came
to see him and soe he died.’

It does honour to the memory of Thomas
Percy, the author of ‘ Reliques of English Poetry,’
to find him usefully employed in preserving the
humble annals of his parish for the benefit of those
that should come after him. The title- page to
the registers bears the following inscription in his
own hand: ‘ These old registers were rescued
from destruction, and for their further preservation
gathered into this volume in 1767; and at the
end of the volume is a fragment of an ancient book
of rates, which was thought a curiosity that deserved
to be preserved :

© Memorandum.

‘Feb. 25% 1767. ‘This day I transcribed imee
the three following Leaves of Parchment all the
Articles of Births, Baptisms, and Burials, during
the years 1756-1766 (inclusive) which I found
entered in a Paper Register of the Baptisms and
Burials of this parish of Wilbye, viz.—all that
happened since I have been Rector of this Parish ;
and after a very exact collation of this copy with
the said originals, I hereby declare it to be very
correct and perfect.’

The ‘fragment’ of the ‘ancient book of rates’
contains many curious and interesting entries
relating to the period when the Court of Charles I.
took up its abode at Wellingborough, in order
that the Queen might drink the chalybeate water
of the ‘red well.’ And it appears from them—

Social Usages. KON

some of which we quote below—that the adjoining
parish of Wilby was laid under contribution for
the supplies of Her Majesty’s household :

“A levy made for the 16% July, 1627, for
her Majesties household, at xij a yard

land—sum total - - - - = Km sae
1627. Layings out for her Majesties house.
Sc. Payd for carrying six chicken and

a capon to Wellingborougge - - ye
It. Payd for carring four strikes of wheat

toye Courte 9) - - - - - vj
it. bay ton six chickens aud a capon - u1js
It. Payd to Thomas Hericke for driving

a load of Charcole to the Courte - - mye
It. Payd for twenty pound of butter - vjs viij?
It. Payd for the caridge of the same - i1ij4,
It. Payd to the Ringer when her Majestie

went through the town to Northton - vj?
It. Payd to six women for gatheringe

rushes (?) - - - - - = E
It. Payd for tow quarter of oates - - E NE
Tt. Payd for a load of wood for the

Counte — - - - = - viijd
To the men to load the wood, and goinge

to Wellingborough wtb it - - - viijd

Sum totl - - - Sys wae

CHAPTER %&

PARISH CUSTOMS.

HE old custom of ringing the curfew-bell,
which Milton has gracefully described—
‘On a plat of rising ground,
I hear the far-off curfew sound,

Over some wide, watered shore,
Swinging slow, with solemn roar ’—

is still kept up in a few villages. For many years
past the practice has been kept up at St. Margaret’s-
at-Cliffe, Kent, during the winter months, with
regard to the due ringing of which there is an
entry in the register, the minute of a vestry
meeting held in the month of September, 1696:
‘Whereas there has been, and is at this time a
parcel of land in this parish, called by the name of
the “ Curfew Land,” consisting of five rods more
or less; which for some time since hath been given
by a shepherd, who one night fell over the Cliff,
yet lived so long as to make the said bequest
for ringing of a Curfew-bell at Eight of the Clock
every night for the Winter half-yeare, viz., from

Parish Customs. 193

Michelmas Day to Lady Day ; and now, finding
the great neglect for some yeares past in the due
ringing thereof, and to prevent, for the future, any
danger which may ensue to travellers and others
being so near the Cliffe, for want of the due and
constant ringing, if possible the like sad Providence
may not befall any others,— we the Minister,
Churchwardens, and others, the Parishioners, whose
names are underwritten, in reference to the per-
formance of the donor’s good intent, do hereby order
and decree that the said Curfew Bell be hereafter
rung—as at the neighbouring parishes it 1s—con-
stantly every night in the week, all the aforesaid
winter half-yeare, the full time 38 a quarter of an
hour at the least, without any exceptions of
Sunday nights or Holy-day nights, and he that
rings is to have and receive the benefit and profit
of the said Curfew-Land, provided that he whoever
is or shall be Clerk of the Parish shall have the
refusal of it before any other, if he will accord-
ingly perform the contents above specified. But,
if not, then it shall be at the Ministers and
Churchwardens’ disposal to let any other have it,
who will ring it accordingly. And in case it shall
not be constantly rung, as is afore specified, it shall
be lawful for the said Minister and Churchwardens
to receive the rent from him who occupies the
said land, and to deduct out of it, for every night
it shall not be rung, two pence for any commission
which shall be given to the poor that come con-
stantly to Church.’

There are numerous traditions to the same
purport, and one current at Barton, Lincolnshire,

r 13

194 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

tells how an old lady, being accidentally benighted
on the wolds, was directed on her journey by the
ringing of the evening bell of St. Peter’s Church.
Out of gratitude for arriving at her destination in
safety, she gave a certain piece of Jand to tar
parish clerk, on condition that he should ring
one of the church bells from seven to eight every
evening, except Sundays, commencing on the day
of the carrying of the first load of barley in every
year, till Shrove Tuesday next ensuing inclusive.

A curious little incident connected with the
ringing of the curfew is recorded in the register of
Penn, Staffordshire :

‘1750, March 25. ‘Mary Penn, foundlines
bapt The child was found tied) up m a clock
and hung to the ring upon the south door of
Penn Church, about eight o’clock p.m. by William
Baker, as he was coming out of church after the
ringing of the Curfew Bell.’

And in connection with bell-ringing, may be
quoted a memorandum in the Leyland registers,
relative to the fees of ringers, similar regulations
occasionally occurring in other registers :

‘November the 4* 1664.

‘It is concluded upon by Mr. Rothwell Vicar
and the Churchwardens now in being that the
ringers appointed by them shall obserue to ringe
in due time on Sundaies and take the benefit of
ringing at Burialls and other times to bee diuided
amongst them by equall portions and received and
distributed by Peter Tootell Clarke or Robert
Sargeant and hereunto the ringers doe subscribe
their names the day and year aboue written.’

Parish Customs. 195

Among the old entries in church books, reference
is occasionally made to the parish bull, a charge
having been levied upon the parson for keeping
a bull for the use of his parishioners. As the
Rector was entitled to the tithe of calves, it was to
his interest to promote increase of tithable produce.
A correspondent of Notes and Queries (sth S.,
mega), says that, “by custom of the parish. of
Quarley, Hants, the parson was bound to keep
a public boar and bull for the use of the parish
This he had neglected to do, whereupon his
parishioners refused to give him the tithe of
mike: A memorandum dated April, 1633, at
St. Nicholas’, Durham, affirms that ‘it is ordered
that Simors Lackenby is to keep in lieu of his
Entercommon ground, one sufficient Bull for the
use of the City and Borough kyne, for three years
next ensuing ; and to give ten shillings towards a
silver plate for a Course.’ From a copy of a Court
Roll of the Manor of Isleworth Syon, dated
September 29, 1675, it appears that Thomas Cole
surrendered four acres and one rood of customary
land lying in several places in the fields of
Twickenham, called the Parish Land, anciently
belonging to the inhabitants of Twickenham, for
keeping a bull for the common use of the inhabi-
tants in trust for the use of the said inhabitants,
for keeping and maintaining a sufficient bull for
the use aforesaid.*

The baiting of a lion, too, was an event not to
be despised, and in the register of St. Mary
Magdalene, Canterbury, this entry is given:

* See Edwards, ‘Remarkable Charities,’ p. 66.
13—2

196 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

‘December the : 6: 1687. Then the lion was baited
to death in the White Hart Marde with dogges.’

Great attention was paid, in days gone by, to
preserving the parish boundaries, disputes relating
to which were «not kon infrequent occurrence.
Hence, the custom of beating the parish bounds is
occasionally noticed in church-books, the subjoined
memorandum occurring in the register of Arling-
ham:

‘Mem.—that I, Henry Childe, Vicar of Arling-
ham, went in perambulation with some of my
parishioners, on Rogation Monday and Tuesday,
1606. Upon the Tuesday I went to the utmost
confines of our parish, eastward and from north to
south, not for any superstitious sake, but to see the
bounds of the parish.’

And we may also quote ‘a true account of the
bownds of the parish of Ringmer, taken by M" John
Lillie, Vicar, with several of the parishioners in
rogation week, being the 148 15 and nO dayes
of May 1683.’ The procession was as follows :

‘Monday y* 14" of May, after divine service at
our parish church, we went from thence along the
King’s highway, to a place called Stone Street
*** And over the hedge at a Crab licee see
From thence we went to the house of M" Henry
Plummer, where both men and boys were worthily
entertained at a plentiful good dinner, and thus
ended our first day’s perambulation.’

The second day they ended at the house of
Lady Springett, ‘where there was a collation
provided for the parishioners, and soe ended the
second day’s perambulation.’

Parish Customs. 197

The close of the third day, it seems, brought
them back to the Crab Tree, at which place ‘ wee
sange a psalm, and our Minister read the Epistle
and Gospel, to request and supplicate the blessing
of God upon the fruites of the Earth. There did
Mr Richard Gunn, by reason of his building a new
apartment to his house at Middleham, invite all
the company to the Clerk’s house, where he
expended at his own charge a barrell of beer,
besides a plentiful supply of provisions brought
from his own house ; and so ended our third and
last day’s perambulation.’

The register of Radipole, Dorchester, contains
an account of the perambulations made by the
parish officers periodically for the purpose of
ascertaining the bounds of the parish; and on
Ascension Day, 1747, ‘after morning prayer at
Turnworth Church [Dorset], was made a publick
Perambulation of y° bounds of y® parish of Turn-
worth by one Richd. Cobbe, Vicar, W™ Northover,
Churchwarden, Henry Sillers and Richard Mullen,
Overseers, and others, with 4 boys; beginning at
the Church Hatch and cutting a great T on the
most principal parts of the bounds. Whipping y°
boys by way of remembrance, and stopping their
cry with some half-pence ; he returned to church
again, which Perambulation and Possessioning had
not been made for 25 years last past.’

On May 14, 1706, the parson of Collingbourne
Ducis duly attended the beating of the parish
boundaries, and has made in his register the
_ following memorandum on the event :

‘I made a perambulation round my parish,

198 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

where we renewed y° old bounds and sett our
land marks according to y® directions of some of
y® oldest inhabitants who were present. We
observed y? yS bridge over ye brooke between
Sunton Collingborn and us stands within ye limits
of our parish, but this is only upon leave given,
and ye inhabitants of Sunton are obliged to renew
and repair ye st bridge whenever it wants either
repairing ar renewal. Ita est. Gui Sheewam
Rector.’

Occasionally interesting details are given re-
specting old parish charities. At Wilmington,
Kent, a copy of a terrier is entered in the register,
wherein it is stated that from the establishment
of the Dean and Chapter of Rochester, in the
time of Henry MIIL, in their leases of the parson-
ages of Sutton and Wilmington, their lessees had
covenanted to deliver to the parishioners of Sutton
and Wilmington a certain quantity of wheat and
grain at Eastertide annually, to be distributed by
the churchwardens of these parishes to the needy
persons within the same; and that in their lease
of the said rectories, granted November 25, 1772,
the lessee covenanted to deliver twenty bushels
of peas to be distributed amongst the most needy
persons in Sutton, and twelve bushels of peas
amongst the like persons in Wilmington; and
also to deliver three bushels of wheat, to be
distributed amongst the poor of Sutton and
Wilmington ; and it is added that the usage had
been for the poor of Wilmington to receive only
one out of the three bushels of wheat.*

* See Edwards, ‘Remarkable Charities,’ 1842, p. 32.

Parish Customs. 199

fees stated mm the register of Harlington,
Middlesex, under the year 1683, that half an
acre of land was given by some person, whose
name was forgotten. But, it adds, it has always
been understood that this piece of land was given
for the benefit of the bell-ringers of the parish, to
provide them with a leg of pork on November 5.
The ground is known as the Pork Acre, and
used to be let for fifty shillings a year, which was
paid by the parish officers to the bell-ringers.

Similarly, the old register of Bushey, Hertford-
shire, informs us that a M” Gale gave a Haber-
dine fish [barrelled cod, so called from Aberdeen,
which was formerly famous for curing this kind
of fish] e half a peck of blue peas, to twenty
widows and widowers once a year. Half a peck
loaf and two pounds of cheese to each person are
given instead.’ In the Parliamentary Report on
Charities, made some years ago, it was stated that
the owner of a field, consisting of about five acres,
lying in the parish of Bushey, was in the habit
of distributing annually, some time in Lent, forty
quartern loaves and forty pounds of cheese among
twenty widows and twenty widowers of the parish
selected by the Rector.

And in one of the Hayton parish registers this
memorandum is given :

‘John Hall of the Head’s Nook, by his last
will and testament, left to the Parishioners of
Head’s Nook, Faugh, and Moss (Know?) the
sum of five pounds, the use whereof was to be
12d, the pound yearly, and to defray the charges
of church repairs for the three townships afore-

200 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

said, so far as it extends: and Isaak Hall, son of
the said John Hall, hath this day entered into
security to pay to the Churchwardens of Hayton
Parish, or any one of them successively, the sum
of five shillings yearly after the date hereof, and
hereby binds his heirs and executors to do so. In
witness whereof the said Isaak Hall hath hereunto
put his hand this September the 23, Cle)
Further, the register of Croydon tells us how
< Francis Tyrrell, citizen and merchant of London
was -buried the 1* of September, 1609, and his
funeral kept at London the 13 of fic sam
month. He gave £200 to the parishioners of
Croydon, to build a new market-house, and £40
to repair our church, and 40s, a year to our poor
of Croydon, for eighteen years, with manie other
good and great legacies to the Citie of London.’
And an ancient register-book has the following
memorandum relative to the little almshouses at
Seon, which is interesting :
‘June 24 being Mydsomr day Anno Dim
1583 Anno regni regine Elizabethe 25.
‘Memorandu’ that the day and yeare above
written, Edmunde Grendall, Archbishop of Can-
terbury his grace, gave Fyftye Poundes of good
and lawfull mony of Englande—at the request
of Mrs, Jenkenson, the wife of James Jenkenson,
keeper of my L. palace in Croydon—unto Samuell
Fynche, Vycar, John Dannet, gent™, George Butler,
gent., George Myller, yeoman, Churchwarden at
same tyme, Richarde Plasted, gent., John Hornden,
yeoman, and Robert Hugh, yeoman, and James
Jenkenson aforesaid, to be bestowed upon a

Parish Customs. 201

purchase for the yearly reliefe of the Lyttle Almes
House. The aforesaid some paid in M= Jenken-
son’s house by Thomas Bellarde, servant to M"
Johni scott, stewarde to my L. grace. Also
Mr Dannet did possess the same some.
PNovemiber xj" anno predicto. The sd sim
of monie was delyvered unto John Hatcher of
Waddon by the said M" Dannet, in the presence
og samuel Hinch, Vicar, ete . In and upon
Consideration whereof the said John Hatcher
yealded and gave up the ryte and tytle of the
mansion house in Waddon, wt! the appurtenances
thereto belonging, into he hande of two of the
londes @enauntes of the Manor of Waddon . . -
to the use of the Little Almes house. In manner
form followinge, viz, that the said John Hatcher
shall have his dwelling, i in and upon the said house
¢7 the appurtenences during his naturall lyfe,
his wife likewise during her natural! life, his
daughter Julyane during her naturall lyfe, yelding
and payinge therfor “yearly fo the aforesaids _
tenaunts or their hemes ¢; executers mji at mija
usuall feastes, that is to say, the feast of Christmas
xv® at the feast ot th: Annonciation, XV: at the
feast of Midsummer xvs and at the feast of
Michaelmas xv by even portions, ¢7 if the said
John Hatcher, his wife, or his daughter, or the
longest liver of them iij, do not dwell on it
themselves, or shall not maintaine it in sufficient
reparacons, or shall be behind in the payment of the
said mone in part or in all or win seven dates
after anie of the said termes; that then it shall
be lawful for the tenauntes thereof to enter in €p

202 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

upon the said howse wt? th’ appurtenences to the
behouf of the said Little Alms house as then
done. And notwithstanding, after the death of
John Hatcher, his wife, or the longest liver of
them three, the said howse w the apurten’ces
theare in, belonge to the sayd tenaunts to behof
of the little Almshoose for ev’.’

And on a fly-leaf of one of the registers of the
same parish this memorandum occurs :

‘An acre of land belonging to the Vicaridge of
Croydon lyes in lane field near Ham farme, and
shootes east and west. At the upper cud
whereof grows an oke on the south, and another
oke on the north, bounding it on both sides from
Sir Tho. Walsingham’s land. On the lower end
thereat is an oke on the north side towards the
hedge, and somewhat higher towards the east
grows a ferne tree w stands upon the Vicaridge
acre about some six foote from the furrow.
Viewed e subscribed by Sam. Barnard, Eccles.
Croyd. pasta

Again, in the year 1614 it appears that Mr.
Robert Smyth founded a free school in Market
Harborough, and in the old register are the fol-
lowing directions given by him for the building
thereof:

‘Whereas a school house m Marker Fiam
borough is intended to be built, to stand upon
posts or columns, over a part of the market-
place, to keep the market-people dry in time of
foul weather. Forasmuch as the Right Worship-
ful the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral Church
of Oxford are patrons of this place, and have

Parish Customs. 203

cause sometimes to visit here; they are humbly
hereby intreated, that they will be pleased to visit
the school also, and to be favourable to good
scholars which shall be trained up here; and shall
be found fit to be perfected, and want means and
friends for their preferment.

‘A deed from the right honble lord Stanhope,
lord of the manor to twelve inhabitants of this
town, concerning liberty to build a school house
there, is deposed in a box im the Chest of this
Chapel, and is registered in the Guildhall, in
London, and to be registered in Christ Church
mm Oxfordi im the eisith year of the reign of
King James. Those that shall survive are to be
remembered to convey their interest to other
inhabitants, and like to continue dwellers in the
Town, when the number shall by death or other-
wise come to four, or sooner if they shall find
cause. Those who shall survey and direct the
building are entreated to be careful that it be
strong and plain, and that the main bearing posts
be set upon stone, somewhat above the ground,
and the windows all clear stories. It is conceived
that thirty-six feet for the length, and eighteen
feet for the breadth, will be a sufficient proportion.’

CHAPTER PNE
SOME CHURCH CUSTOMS.

| N olden times stage plays were performed on a

Sunday, not only in the churches, but in the
theatres, references to which are frequently made
in many old church-account books. The Bewdley
chapel-warden’s accounts, for instance, give this
entry: ‘Paid unto the queenes plaicrs mm tne
Church, six shillings and eightpence.’ And the
register of Syston, under the year 1602, contains
this item, ‘ Paid to Lord Morden’s players because
they should not play in the Church, xijd.,’ thus show-
ing that the players claimed a sort of prescriptive
right to use the house of God for their performances.

But prior to this period several attempts had
been made to check this abuse, and Bonner Bishop
of London, issued in the year 1542 a proclama-
tion to his clergy, prohibiting all manner of
common plays, games, or interludes to be played,
set forth, or declared within their churches or
chapels.* And the author of a tract published in

* See Kelly’s ‘Notices of Leicester,’ pp. 1-25.

Some Church Customs. 205

the year 1572 also censures in severe terms the
practice of the clergy neglecting their duties, and
encouraging stage-plays in churches :

Pite again posteth it over as fast as he can
gallop ; for he either hath two places to serve, or
else there are some games to be played in the
afternoon, as lying the whetstone, heathenish
dancing u the ring, a beare or bull to be baited,
or else jack-an-apes to ryde on horseback, or an
interlude to be played, and if no place else can be
gotten, it must be done in the church.’

A writer in the North British Review for
February, 1863 (194), remarks that even in
Scotland, ‘long after the Reformation, such plays
were performed, and sometimes still upon a Sunday,
for the people saw no harm in this, and petitioned
the National Assembly that it might be allowed.
But the Reformed Ministers had now begun to
entertain stricter notions of the day of rest, and
forbade on that day the performance of plays.’

It may be added that many curious particulars
illustrative of the performance of plays in churches,
consisting of extracts from the accounts of
St. Margaret’s Church, Southwark, will be found
in the Shakespeare Society Papers (III.), contri-
buted by Mr. J. Payne Collier, who also com-
mumettes a note that ‘on June 7th, 1483, the
citizens of Lincoln had leave to perform a play in
the nave of the cathedral, as had been their custom
upon the Assumption of the Virgin Mary.’

And from Hayes register it appears that in the
eighteenth century the favourite amusement during
Divine service was cock-throwing in the church-

206 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

yard, once, as it is noted, ‘in spite of the justice,
minister, parish-officers, and constables.’ But two
years later things grew far more serious, for the
justice gave up the matter. The Rev. C. Manning
writes:

‘Feb. 271754. Being Shrove Tuesday, Divine
service was performed in the afternoon, and no
care was taken to prevent the throwing at cocks,
rioting, and swearing in the churchyard, at the
same time ; though I gave previous notice of the
same to the churchwardens and the magistrate,
and desired that it might be prevented for the
honour of God and a public good; but his answer
was this :—“ I know no law against throwing at
cocks, even in the churchyard:4;

And from a parish-book belonging to St. Mary’s,
Shrewsbury, we learn that in the year 1584 the
inhabitants of Astley were complained against for
playing at bowls on a Sunday. It was ordered
that ‘they shall adorn and repair their chapel at
their own expence, as a commutation.’

But church life was not the same in all parishes,
for there is a memorandum, dated 1613, in Buxted
register, of the combination of the parishioners for
the better observance of the Sabbath. It runs
thus :

‘Because God hath commanded us to have a
care that the Sabbath daye be kept holy, both by
ourselves and others, as farre as we are able, there-
fore, upon consideration that the Lord’s Day hath
heen many and divers ways profaned by unlawful
meetings and feastings for manie years past, we,
whose names are undersigned, doe give our con-

Some Church Customs. 207

sente, that for the time to come the parish feaste—
commonly called yon faull—shall be kept upon
Se james fis day, except it fall on the Sabbath;
and then it may, and must be kept, if it be kept
at all, upon the next day following: and thus
desiring God to remember us in his goodnesse ; as
we desire to keep this day in holinesse after the
example of Nehemiah and his people.’

At Spofforth, again, the inhabitants had become
so ungodly during the Commonwealth that a
meeting was convened, and the Rector, church-
wardens, and some of the principal inhabitants
drew up a code of laws for the better observance
of the Lord’s Day. But, unfortunately, owing to
damp, some of the words in the register are
illegible, the heading and the last of the orders
being completely so :

‘Spofforth, 14 May, 1654.

‘Whereas the [observance] of ye Lord’s Day
commanded by the Laws of God and enjoyned by
sev all Lawes of this nation hath been of late very
much abused and neglected, and apar} [sever jall
abuses and misdemeanours have been comited and
doone, in and about the Church and Churchyard
of the towne of Spofforth, to prevent the growing
evills and the sadd consequencies wh* may ensue
thereupon, it is ordered and agreed by us, whose
names are under written, in manner and forme
following —

‘I. Concerning y° observation of ye Lord’s Day.
—r. It is ordered and agreed that every man
shall appear himselfe to sanctifie the Lord’s Day

208 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

in pietie and true Religion both in Publique ¢7
private.

‘2 it is ordered and agreed if any butcher wttin
this pi shall, by himselfe or any other, kill any
beast or sell any victualls on the Lords day, he
sal pay vj" yii for every such offence.

‘3 if any p’son shall exercise or be p’sent at any

eee bowlings, frechings, ringerings . . . or
any ... whatever. . . the like mii he be foyer
fifteen years he shall pay .. . fer every Suci

ofence, and [if he be under] that age his maister
or his parents shall pay twelve pence.

‘4 and if any pon be on the Words day im
any Inn . . . alehouse or dwellinge house, except
for Lodgeinge or for some other ocasion alowed
by the Justice, or if he shall be found drinkeinge
or p’phaining by swearinge or Raileringe in oe of
these houses he shall pay ro’ and they yt
su shall pay 10%.

o t any man shall mand on cause. tonbe
ground any corne in the mill upon the Lord’s day
except in case of nessessitie, shall pay 10% for every
such offence.

‘Item that all head oficers and inferior oficers
make diligent search to find out and punish the
sev’all ofenders against the several Acts made for
the observation of the Lord’s day.

‘if. Concern . . | abuses St 1s Ordered
and agreed that if all p’sons shall demean them-
selves decently and Reverently in the church,

‘2 it is ordered and agreed that if any p’son
shall abuse or . . . a dead corps in the church or
church yard issuing after the interment, for the

Some Church Customs. 209

same he shall be ordered at the next sessions
following and shall suffer punishment according to
Law.

eae iS ordered and agreed ‘that if any shall
Ringe bells for pleasure, on the Lord’s day he
shall sufer according to Law.

‘4 if any man shall Ringe the bells upon
ordinarie daies without the consent of y° minister
or churchwardeners he shall be indicted for the
ofence at the next Sessions following.

o iS oded and agreed that if any man
shall send for stronge drinke to tipple in the
Crunch or take to | l . he shall be complaned
and sufer punishment for the misdemeanor.

<6. [Illegible].”

Then follow the signatures of the Rector,
churchwardens, and twenty-five of the parishioners.*

And, speaking of the observance of the Sabbath,
a curious accident, which brought a somewhat
severe and uncharitable stricture from the parson,
is recorded on a loose leaf in one of the registers
of Kirkandrews-upon-Esk :

‘Upon Nov. 1. 1696 y- happened a very sad
accident 28 people were drowned at Canabie Boat
as y°Y were passing y* water from church. Six
persons come to years of discretion went from y®
own church to Canaby. Every soul of y% was
drowned, ‘These six lived in my parish. There
happened in y“! company two boys of g and 11
weaiseolds hey were in y° midst of y° pool

* See ‘Yorkshire Parish Registers,’ the Axtiguary, 1882,
vol, vi., p. 192.

14

210 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

over head and ears in water wt! y° rest of y° people
yt were drowned and yet by a distinguishing
privilege y=: two only got out of y® water safe.
Surely God Almighty thereby showed his dis-
pleasure to these persons who being of age passed
by y®* own parish Church to Canaby, but shewed
his mercy to y° boys, who knew not wt y did but
went for company sake. In suffering persons of
age yt were of my parish to be drowned and in
preserving y° two lads safe even in as great danger
in all human probability as yS rest. This is so
distinguishing a evidence y* everyone ought to~
take notice of it, and take heed how they run
from y*" own parish Church.’

Another strange accident is incidentally alluded
to in the register of burials of St. Anne’s, Black-
friars, under October 28, 1623: ‘Dorothy, wife
of Mathew Sommers. She was slain at a priest’s
sermon, Mary Clement, waiting-woman to the
said Dorothy, slain with her mistress,’

‘The horrid accident thus noticed,’ writes
Malcolm in his ‘ Londinium Redivivum’ (ii. 372)

‘occasioned a number of pamphlets, intolerant
and bigoted in the extreme ; amongst which was,
s Something written by occasion of that fatal and
memorable accident in the Black Friers on Sunday,
being the 26% of October, 1623, Stilo antiquo, and
the 5 November, Stilo novo, or Roman, 1623.””

It appears that a certain Father Drury, a member
of the Society of Jesuits, and in priest’s orders,
had the reputation of being a fervent preacher,
and hence drew large congregations, by no means
confined to Roman Catholics, One account of the

—————

Some Church Customs. 211

disaster informs us that over the gateway of the
hotel of the French Ambassador, in Blackfriars,
which was of stone and brick, was a gallery, or
attic story, of 40 feet in length amd 7 feet in
width, the third in height from the ground.
There were two passages to this room, one from
the street, the other from the Ambassador’s with-
drawing-room. The lower floor had a vault of
stone. Twelve feet were taken from the length
of the gallery by a deal partition, and this
apartment served as a vestry-room for the priest ;
so that an auditory of near 300 persons were
compressed within a space but 28 feet in length
andiamo feet im breadth, As the architect who
erected this building could never have supposed
so many people would have assembled in it, he
had taken no precautions calculated to sustain so
great a weight; on the contrary, it was found
that the principal beam of the floor had been
almost severed by two mortices facing each other
in the centre, leaving little more than 3 inches of
solid wood.

A few chairs were occupied by the superior
classes of the congregation before the priest, who
had a table near him, but the remainder stood
literally wedged together. Drury made his appear-
ance, and took his text from the parable of the
servant and ten thousand talents, and scarcely half
an hour had elapsed when the dreadful catastrophe
occurred, which in an instant precipitated the whole
mass of unfortunate listeners through a floor beneath
them, ‘ where they were engulphed in a torrent of
timber, laths, and dust, after a descent of twenty-

14—2

212 Soctal Life as Told by Parish Registers.

two feet. Father Drury was killed) andthe
coroner’s inquest examined into the cause of no
less than 63 deaths, but it is supposed that
between go and 100 persons lost their lives.

The keeping of Lent was formerly enforced by
proclamation, and an office granting licenses to
eat flesh in any part of England was established
in St, Paul’s Churchyard ; but the relaxation was
not unfrequently obtained by a gift of money to
the poor. In the register-books of the parish of
Prestbury there are appended at the close of the
years 1632 and 1633 the licenses granted to sick
and aged persons to eat flesh meat during the
season of Lent, and numerous entries occur in
different registers showing how rigidly the keep-
ing of Lent was enforced. According to Taylor,
‘the Water Poet,’ the trade of the butchers was
at a standstill for ds weeks before Easter:

‘The cut-throat butchers, wanting throats to cut,
At Lent’s approach their bloody shambles shut;
For forty days their tyranny does cease,

And men and beasts take truce, and live in peaces

An entry in the parish register of Newington,
Surrey, illustrates the provisions of the law in
cases where licenses were granted, and states that
a person being ‘notoriously sick’ is ‘to eat flesh
this time of Lent during the time of sickness
only, according to law in that case provided’ ;
but it adds that during the time of such sickness
no ‘ beef, veale, porke, mutton, or bacon’ be eaten.
Old age was another ground for obtaining a dis-
pensation from the obligations of the law, and an
entry in the register of St. Mary’s, Leicester, tells

Some Church Customs. 213

us that in the year 1618 a license was granted to
Lady Barbara Hastings ‘to eat flesh in Lent on
account of her great age.’

The same license is granted more formally in
the following case recorded in the parish register
of Staplehurst :

‘Be it known unto all men by these presents,
that I, James Bowyer, Clarke, and Curate of the
Churche of Staplehurst, in the County of Kent,
have licensed, and by these presents do license,
William Tanner, yeoman, being at this tyme sicke
and visited by the mighty hand of God, to eate
fleshe, and to use such meates as shall seem best
to him for the recovery of his health.’

The register of Wolverton tells us how Sir
Thomas Temple had to pay thirteen shillings and
fourpence for a license to eat flesh on days pro-
hibited, and a further case may be quoted from
the last page of the Bampton register :

‘Whereas the Right Worshp! Sir Thomas
Hood knight and his worthy lady, having upon
undeniable evidence made it appear that they are
not in bodily health, and therefore according to
the lawe in that case provided have obtained a
licence to eat flesh during the time of their Indis-
position of bodies; But since the Date of eight
dayes allowed by the Statute is expired, and they
are still in a sickly condition, upon their request the
said licence is longer indulged them to dress Flesh
and accordingly registered. March 18, 1660.’

In spite, however, of the severity of the law,
it was not always observed ; fon in the < Elistory
of Henley’ (1861) a list of persons is given who

214 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

were presented (38 Eliz.) for eating flesh in
Lent :

‘Robt. Chamberlin for roasting a pigg in his
house the xxiij. day Marche, wc? was spent at
Thomas Seywell’s house, the cobbler.

‘Henry Wanlar for seething ij p’ce of bacon,’

Turning to Easter, we find from a memorandum
in the Tottenham register, dated 1577, that ‘the
vestry resolved that every parishioner, rich or
poor, should at Easter pay quarterage for thei
Church, and providing bread and wine at the
Communion seven- pence, and every person having
one or more houses to pay the same for every
empty house, and to the Clark’s wages such
sum or sums according to ancient collection’ ;
and as illustrating Church life in the seventeenth
century, we may incidentally quote the subjoined
notice from the parish rate-books at Hampsthwaite,
published in the year 1786 by the parson for the
information of his parishioners as to his arrange-
ments for Eastertide :

‘I give notice to all the Parishioners within

e pishe of Hampsthwaite that I intend (God
willing) to administer ye Blessed Com. on those
days following, viz., Palm Sunday, Good Friday,
Easter Even, Easter day in the [church ame
here will be sermons and homelys on Good Friday
and Easter Even by myselfe or some other, and
I pray do not drive all till last days Oud uesday
in Passion Week at Thornthwaite Chapel. On
Monday morning after Palme Sunday to y® sicke
cp lame of Holme Sinders Hills.

‘On Tuesday morning, before I begin at

Some Church Customs. 215

Chappell, to the sick and lame people of Thorn-
thwaite & Padside.

‘On Wednesday morning to ye sick of y°
Hamblett of Birtsw*® and felicliffe, and on Thurs-
day morning to ys Hambt of Hamp. Y° Church-
wardens are to give notice y® night before to attend
in y° Hambletts.

Piesne iye pioners of this pish to take
notice ¢7 others not of yS pish y? are concerned,
that they come and reckone and pay y" compts
betwixt [now] and Easter day to me or some
other I shall appoint. The reck will be taken
in y® Church.

‘I shall be at home or in ye Church every day
after now until Easter except Monday and Tues-
day in) Bassion Week, when I am to be at
Lawrence Buck’s to reteine y® reck ¢ 7 compts
of all persons that live within the compasse of
Sinders Hills.

‘I desire the Church wardens will take notice,
as much as in them lyes, of those persons that do
willfully absent y™selves from Sacrament, y* are
above 16 years of age. I give notice I will take
notecka mor any for me, om Sunday morn:
nor on Good Friday morning nor on Saturday
morning.

‘The Church wardens are to provide bread and
wine agt those days I have appointed, at y° charge
Of y= pis. If any person be able to go or ride
to Church or Chappell let them not expect me
at their houses.

‘A great Sickness I fear this ensuing year. I
pray God’s Blessing from plag: & pestilnssis—L!

216 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

grant me health amongst my wife and children,
I fear sad things will befall this land this year.”
But there is nothing to show why the parson
felt the anxiety expressed in the last sentences.
To prevent any breach of church discipline by
the intrusion of dogs during Divine worship, an
official known as the ‘dog-whipper’ was regularly
paid an annual stipend to keep watch, constant
allusions to which custom occur in registers and
church-books. Thus, at Mary-le-Bow, Durham,
under April 6 1722, dhe burial of Brian Pearson,
the abbey dog-whipper, is recorded ; and in the
churchwardens’ books of the united parishes of
St. Mary Woolnoth and St. Mary Woolchurch
Haw, in the City of London, this entry occurs:
‘Item paied for a whip to beate doggs out of the
Church, j*.’ In some cases charitable bequests
were left for the purpose of paying the official in
question ; as appears from Edwards’s ‘ Remarkable
Charities,’ where we learn that ‘ten shillings a year
is paid by the tenant of Sir John Bridges asa charge
on lands called “ Dog-Whippers’ Marsh,” contain-
ing about two acres, ‘to a person for keeping order
in the chureh during service. And “trom tlre
register of Kirkby-Wharfe, Grimston, we gather
that three shillings was the amount which the
churchwardens paid as the annual salary of the
dog-whipper in the years 1705 and 1706; whilst
in the year 1711 there was ee to Thomas Paw-
son, for awakening those who sleep in church, and
for whipping dogs out of it, four shillings. One
of the parish books of Croft, in Lincolnshire,
* See the Axntiguary, 1882, vol. vi., p. 191.

SES a a ae

Some Church Customs. 217

records that seven shillings and sixpence was paid
‘for dogs wipping’ in 1718, whereas from the
Castleton parish records we learn that the salary
of the sluggard-waker in 1722 was ten shillings,
Apropos of this custom, Mr. J. C. Cox informs
us that in the church of Baslow, Derbyshire, there
still remains the weapon of the ancient parish
functionary, the dog-whipper. It was his duty
to whip the dogs out of church, and generally to
look after the orderly behaviour of both bipeds
and quadrupeds during Divine service. The whip
in question is a stout lash, some 3 feet in length,
fastened to a short ash stick, with leather Boned
round the handle. We beens it to be a unique
curiosity, as we cannot hear of another parish in
which the whip is still extant.

There is said, also, to be still in existence in the
church of Clynnog Vawr, in North Wales, an
instrument for dragging dogs Gut of church, altel
has a long pair of curiously shaped tongs with
sharp spikes fixed at the ends—an interesting relic
of the church discipline of the past.

Similarly, many bequests were made in years
gone by for the strewing the church with rushes,
a custom which was, it may be remembered, in
many country parishes attended with all kinds of
festive formalities. In the parish seosten Of
Kinkham Wancashire, are entries to this eect:
‘ 1604. Rushes to strew the church cost this
year nine shillings and sixpence.’ And under the

ear 1631: ‘ Paid for carrying the rushes out of
the church in sickness time five shillings.’ But
after the year 1634 disbursements for rushes never

218 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

appear in the Kirkham register, when the church
was flagged for the first time. In the parish
account-books of Hailsham, Sussex, charges occur
for strewing the church floor with straw or rushes;
and, in accordance with an old bequest, it has
been customary for the Mayor to go to St. Mary
Redcliffe Church, Bristol, on Whit Sunday, when
the church is strewn with rushes.

The alteration of the Style of the Calendar is
noticed in one of the registers of Kirkandrews-
upon-E'sk :

‘Whereas our old English Stile, or year of our
Lord, did not commence till the 25** day of March
wè was attend’d with great many Inconveniencys:
But by our Act passed in the 24* year of the
Reign of King George the Second, and in the year
of our Lord 1751: This old Stile ceased and
for the future the first day of January is to be
taken deem’d and accounted the first Day of every
year. And by the st Act 11 days in the month of
7eer were annihilated and then the new stile took
place. N.B. The 11 days were dropt betwixt 24
and ryth Obes t752.

And apropos of this change in the calendar, a
curious entry occurs in one of the Glaisdale register
books :

‘Sept. 2. The new style, or Gregorian account,
took place by Act of parliament ; so eleven days
were cut off or annihilated, and the 2% of
September, 1752, was reckoned the 13%, the next
day the 14*, and so on. This was well enough
till Christmas came, when some would—yea, a
great many—keep old Christmas, and some the

IPAS LES i an

Some Church Customs. 219

new ; nay, the superstitious notion was so prevalent
among our moor-folks, that scarce above forty
made their appearance at our Sacrament on new
Christmas Day, which I could attribute to nothing
but superstition and bigotry. Oh, opinion! Oh,
conceit !!_ Oh, ignorance!!!’

CHAPTER XN

STRANGE NATURAL PHENOMENA.

ANY unusual events connected with our
| Vy | physical and natural history are recorded
in the parish register. Indeed, the allusions to
storms, earthquakes, meteors, floods, frosts,
droughts, and such-like occurrences, constitute
one of the most unique and authentic sources of
information. Such entries, too, often give the
most graphic details of the fearful havoc and
destruction caused by these, as they were com-
monly called, ‘ visitations of Providence.’ ‘Thus,
in August, 1577, an alarming thunderstorm,
chronicled in the register, occurred at Bungay one
Sunday at prayer- time, causing the death of two
men in the belfry—an event which gave rise to
the wonderful legend of the ‘blacke dogge of
Bungay,’ or the ‘divel in such a likenesse,’ that ran
down the body of St. Mary’s with great swiftnesse
and incredible haste, ‘and wrung the necks of two
men.’ According to the register of Holy Trinity,
Dorchester, on August 22, 1651, “at night peere

“A

Strange Natural Phenomena 221

was great thunder and lightning, such as had not
been known by any living in this age, and there
fell with it a great storm of hail, some of the
stones of which were seven inches about, with
abundance of rain, and it continued all night and
great part of next morning till eight or nine of the
clock.’

Wnder July 6, 1666, an entry in Lambeth
parish register records the burial of John Ward,
who ‘ was killed with a thunderbolt.’ It appears
that on July 12, 1787, in the same parish, another
death of a similar kind occurred, which is thus
described in the Gentleman’s Magazine:

‘July 12, died at his house, near the Bishop’s
Palace, Lambeth, at about a quarter before six in
the evening, by a flash of lightning, Mr. Bacon,
Clerk to the Salt Office. At the beginning of the
storm he was drinking tea with his wife; the back
windows of the one pair of stairs to the south
having been open all day, he went up for the
purpose of shutting them, and in the action of
lifting up his right arm received the stroke, which
tore his coat eight inches in length, and four in
breadth ; whence it entered his right side, nearly
opposite his heart, went through his body, and out
at the left hip, and down his left leg to his buckle
—which melted—and tore the upper leather of
the shoe from the sole. His dog being at that
foot, was also struck dead ; after which the light-
ning penetrated the wainscot and floor of the one
pair of stairs, and made its way into the front
parlour, north, where it tore the wainscot in a
singular manner, and went off with an explosion

222 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

louder than any piece of ordnance. Another
account says that he owed his death to a gun being
laid across the window, placed there to prevent
thieves breaking into the house, which, on this
occasion, operated as a conductor for the light-
ning; for, at the instant he was shutting the
window, he received the electrical fire from the
barrel of the gun, which he accidentally touched,
and was immediately shot dead. The violence of
the shock was such that it tore out his intestines,
and made his body a most shocking spectacle.’

The unfortunate man was buried in the church-
yard, and a monument was erected to his memory
with this inscription:

‘Near this place are the remains of
Witt1am Bacon,
Of the Salt Office, Lond., gent.,
Who was killed by thunder and lightning at his window,
July 12% 1787,
Aged 34 yeans.
‘ By touch ethereal in a moment slain,

He felt the power of death, but not the pain ;

Swift as the lightning glanc’d, his spirit flew,

And bade this rough tempestuous world adieu.

Short was his passage to that peaceful shore

Where storms annoy and dangers threat no more.’

At the beginning of the old register of Hawks-
head there is this memorandum :

‘Bee it remembered that upon the tenth day of
June att night in y® yeare of our Lord God one
thousand sixe hundred eighty and sixe there was
such a fearefull thunder with fyre and rayne which
occasioned such a terrible flood as the like of it was

Strange Natural Phenomena. 228

never seene in these parts by noe man liveinge ;
for it did throw downe some houses and mills and
tooke away severall briggs. . . . The water did
run through houses and did much hurte to houses ;
besydes the water washt upp greate trees by the
roots, and the becks and gills carried them with
other greate trees, stocks and greate stones a greate
way off and layd them on men’s ground ; yea
further the water did so fiercely run downe the
bye-wayes and made such deepe holes and ditches
in them that att severall places neither horse nor
foote could passe, and besydes the becks and rivers
did soe breake out of their waves as they brought
spreadinge greate sand beds into men’s ground att
many places which did greate hurte the never like
was known. I pray God of His greate mercy
grant that none which is now living may never see
the like againe.’

It is remarkable how frequently destructive
storms of this kind are reported to have occurred,
producing floods which may well have filled our
forefathers with dismay. Thus, the register of
Arlingham describes a flood that took place on
Tuesday in the forenoon, on January 20, 1606-7:

‘There was an exceeding great fludd, and the
greater by reason of the south west winde, so hye
that one might have morde a boate at Thomas
Kinges gate; when many lost their sheepe and
other cattle and their goods, Horsecroft and New-
bridge being then sowde with wheat, and all over-
flowde ; and had it not been for the C—— boate,
which was commonly used upon 1o* daye, and in
the Tenure of Me Robert Yate and Thomas ——,

224 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

manye about the number of twenty, had lost their
lives, or, at the least, binne greatly endangered to
be pined or starved to death, M* Thomas Yate
and his eldest son, M" Richard Yate, were then
hemm’d in upon Glass Cliffe with the water. I
say it is an admirable memorandum, because it
exceeded the fludd that was about forty-six years
before a foot and a half at the least higher than it
was then. Cursed be the hand that rascth= this
memorable Recorde out of this Booke. Upon
the same day M= Anne,— who then was not
churched,— for feare of the waters, was with
Mr Childe, then Vicar, and his familie, fain to be
hurried over with the boate from the Vicaridge.
And this day was just three weekes after Elizabeth
Childe was born.’*

Another flood on Tuesday, November 4, 1628,
is described in a lengthy memorandum : ‘Flood
over $ yard high in Vicarage Barn’; and one in
the following year, February 3, 1629, ‘ranne not
into Vicarage.’

< Thrice have I seen a fearful inundation

Within the space of two-and-twentie years,

As few of my coate have in all their station ;
Which when it comes (as’t will) into men’s eares,
What hart so hard that can abstain from teares?
But woe is me that I am first to dwell

Where seas, enradge with windes, so proudlie swell!

God knows who shall survive to see the next—
To be, as I have binne, with feare perplext.’

In June, 1645, a memorandum in the parish
register of Loughborough informs us that ‘ there
fell a strange storm in that part of Leicestershire

* See ‘Gloucestershire Notes and Queries,’ vol. i., p. 246.

Strange Natural Phenomena. 225

which is about Loughborough ; some of the hail-
stones were as big as small hens’ eggs, and the
least as big as musket bullets: it destroyed the
corn, and did much hurt in that part of the
country where it fell.’

Equally or still more terrific seems to have been
a storm of great violence which happened on
November 27, 1703, and it is described in the
register of St. Oswald, Durham, as ‘the greatest
hurricane and storm that ever was known in
England. Many churches and houses were
extreamely shattered, and thousands of trees blown
down, thirteen or more of her Maj’ties men of
war were cast away, and above two thousand
seamen perished in them. N.B. The storm came
no further north than Yarmouth. The Bishop of
Bath and Wells was killed in his bed, his palace
being blown down. And so widespread was the
consternation caused by this tempest that it was
made the occasion of a public fast which was
solemnly kept by royal proclamation on 19 Jan
1704.

Another memorandum of this storm occurs in
the register of Collingbourne Ducis which ‘did
unspeakable damage all over England, but few places
suffered more y” ye parsonage here. For there
was one long barn blown down, all y® rest of y°
barns, outhouses, stables, and ricks of corn were
unthatched, y° whole dwelling house uncovered, ye
lead upon ye chancell shrivelled up like a scrowl,
and ye tower and body of y° church much damni-
fied. At ye same time the Right Rev. Richard
Kidder, Bishop of Bath and Wells, together with

15

226 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

his Lady, were destroyed in y? palace at Wells.
But by* Providence of God both man and beast
escaped all manner of hurt in these parts.’

An entry in the following year, dated Novem-
ber 27, 1704, tells us what the damage caused by
this hurricane cost the parson :

< About ys time I cast up what my charges had
been in building a new barn, in ye alterations of
my house, and in repairing y“ greatest part of ye
damage occasioned by y° storm, and y* sum
amounted to £140 at ye lowest computation ; ye
remaining part of my charge will, I suppose, come
to nean ASO

And in Hawstead register we find this entry :

‘1703. Nov. 25. and 26. in the evening of both
those days there were very considerable tempests
of thunder and lightning; and: 27° inthe
morning, there was a most terrifying hurricane,
intermixt with thunder, that threw down chimnies,
barns, trees, and horses, in several places, and
destroyed many persons by land: and at sea there
were fourteen men of war lost, among which was
a real admiral, besides abundance of merchant
ships to an extraordinary value.’

And the storm that occurred at Loughborough
on the last day of July, 1735, is noteworthy, for,
according to the account given, ‘there happened such
an Inundation of water in the town that never was
heard of by the ancients occasioned by a very great
Tempest of Thunder Lightning and Rain which
continued from half an hour after nine to half an
hour after three in the afternoon to the great
astonishment of all y° Parishioners and Country

Strange Natural Phenomena. 227

both, it being on the Market Day Thursday.
The brooks from the Forest came down with
such violence that in the space of an hour ran
through all the houses on the left hand the Malt
Mill Lane over the Door Thresholds and thro’
the yards down to the Shambles. And both
streams meeting at the end of the Shambles ran
over the highest place on the Conwall ; and thro
all the houses Gats places and low Rooms on the
West side of the Market Place insomuch that the
waters stood up to their Bed sides in their Parlers
and floated their vessels in the cellars, and would
take a Horse up to the Belly ; and at the bottom
of the Swan Street up to the Saddle, and ran over
the walls of the Bridge going into the Rushes, and
burst down a garden wall on the right hand the
Bridge, and so got more Liberty and then speedily
abated to the astonishment of all the Spectatours:
which might say with the Psalmist, ‘Oh come hither
and behold the Works of the Lord what Destruction
He hath brought upon the earth and lhkewise—

< Thou art a God that doth foreshow thy wonders every Hour
And so doth make the People know thy virtue and thy

Power
The Clouds that were both thick and Black did rain most

plentiously
The Thunder in the air did crack his shafts abroad did

fly ’—
to conclude from Lightning and Tempest from
Plague Pestilence and Famine from battel and
Murder and from Sudden Death Good Lord deliver
us. Amen.”
Perhaps one of the most extraordinary storms
1§—2

228 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

recorded is the great snow-storm of January 16,
1614-15, one of the many accounts of which is
preserved in the parish register of Youlgrave,
Derbyshire, under the heading ‘A Memoriall of
the Great Snow Storm.’

“It covered,’ runs the narrative, ‘the earth five
quarters deep upon the plain, and for heaps or
drifts of snow, they were very deep, so that
passengers, both horse and foot, passed over gates,
hedges and walls. It fell at ten several times, and
the last was the greatest, to the great admiration
and fear of all the land, for it came from the four
pts of the world, so that all the c’ntryes were full,
yea, the South p’te as well as these mountaynes,
It continued by daily encreasing until the 12 day
of March (without the sight of any earth, eyther
upon hilles or villeges) uppon w® daye, being the
Lordes Day it began to decrease ; and so by little
and little consumed and wasted away, till the
eight and twentieth day of May, for then all the
heapes or drifts of snow were consumed, except
one upon Kinder-Scout, w® lay till Witson Week.’

And the Croydon register, under February 14,
1614-15, says: ‘ This was the day of the terrible
snow, and the Sunday following a greater.’

It seems that this storm was followed by a
drought, and from the same source we learn that
‘there was no rayne fell uppon the earth from the
25‘ day of March till the 2™¢ day of May, and
then there was but one shower, after which there
fell none tyll the 18™ day of June, and then there
fell another ; after y* there fell none at all till the
4 day of August, after which tyme there was

Strange Natural Phenomena. 229

sufficient rayne uppon the earth; so that the
greatest pt of the land, especially the South pts
were burnt upp both corne and hay an ordinary
suimer load of hay was at £2 and little or none to
be gott for money.’

The great frost of 1607 is incidentally alluded
to in Tottenham parish register :

‘Edward Terrill, a fool or innocent, who was
brought up in M! George Kemp’s house, at Totten-
ham parsonage, and at other places where the said
Mr Kempe dwelt for many years, was buried upon
Wednesday the 13% day of Januarie; 1607-8.
The ground in the churchyard so hard frozen that
it could hardlie be pearced with a mattock or
pickaxe. Note. The Thames frozen over.’

This frost began the week before Christmas,
and lasted till the end of January. The Thames
was first frozen over near London Bridge. It
acquired such a firmness and consistency that we
are told it became the roadway between London
and Westminster and between Southwark and
London. An amusing picture of the Thames
thus frozen over is given in Lysons’ ‘ Environs’
(iii. 543) :

‘Thirst you for beere, ale, usquibah, or for
victuals? there you buy it, because you may
tell on another day how you dined upon the
Thames. Are you cold with going over? You
shall, ere you come to the midst Of the riven,
spie some ready with pannes of coals to warm
your fingers. If you want fruit after you have
dined there be costermongers to serve you at
your call. There were games of nine-holes ¢

230 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

pidgeon holes in great abundance. Among other
things, that will in times to come look to be
remembered, this is one—that there were two
barbers’ shops in the fashion of booths, with
signes, and other properties of that trade belonged
to ‘them, ‘fixed oni the “yee; “to. mhich many
numbers of persons resorted, and (albeit they
wanted no shaving) yet would they here be
trimmed, because another day they might report
that they lost their hair between the Bank-side
and London. Both these shoppes were still so
full that the workmen thought every day had
been Saturday, never had they more barbarous
doinges for the time—there was both olde polling
g3 cold polling.’

This memorable frost is made the subject of
a special entry in the Croydon register, where,
under December, 1607, it is recorded that ‘the
greatest frost began the g day of this month,
it ended on Candlemas Even.’

In the Nantwich register it is thus described :

‘In this yeare 1607 was an extreame great
ffrost which began about St. Andrew’s Day, before
Christyde, and continued till the first week of
Lent following, which was about ix weekes.` The
extremity whereof caused great scarsety of water
for Cattell soe that many dyed in sundry places
of this land. Tames at London was frosen 5
foote thick. The same forced many suche as
were deseased to yeald to nature; especially ould
people. The Lord in mercy soften our frosen
hearts as we may better imbrace the Word of
God and be freed from the lyke punishements.’

Strange Natural Phenomena. Zt

Another great frost was that of 1683-84. It
was of eight weeks’ duration, and is made the
subject of a memorandum in the register of Holy
Rood Church, Southampton :

‘This yeare was a great Frost, which began
before Cristmasse, so that y° 3" ¢9 4 dayes of
this month of February ye fiver of Southampton
was frossen all over and covered with ice from
Calshott Castle to Redbridge and Tho: Martaine
ma of a vessell went upon ys ice from Berry near
Marchwood to Milbrook Point. And y° river
at Ichen Ferry was so frossen over that severall
persons went from Beauvois Mill to Bittern Farme
forwarde & backwards.”

On the other hand, occasional reference is made
to the excessive heat. The register of Lough-
borough, for instance, records the great heat of
the summer of the year 1808, and adds that on
‘Wednesday, July 13% the heat was so intense
that in consequence thereof many People died,
especially they that were at work in the fields,
also a great number of Horses, particularly coach-
horses drawing stage-coaches. The thermometer
as high as 92° And according to the Arlingham
register just two centuries beforehand, ‘there was
a most extreame hott somer, in so much that
many died with heat.’

But, as nowadays, the weather in most years
has varied, and an entry in the parish register of
Mayfield, Sussex, gives some interesting particulars
respecting the season of 1626:

‘In the former part of this summer there was
an extraordinary great fall of raine, and apparent

232 Soctal Life as Told by Parish Registers.

danger of famine, whereupon a publicke faste was
proclaimed throughout the kingdom to be kept
on the 2"? August, which accordingly being per-
formed, it pleased the Lord in great mercy, the
very same day to send a comfortable sunshine,
and after that very seasonable and fair harvest-
weather, the like whereof has seldom been with
so little intermission or mixture of rain, herein
verifying his promise, Psalm 1—‘‘ Thou shalt call
upon me in the time of trouble and I will deliver
thee.” Our duty followeth “And thou shalt
glorify me.” Mew Osy Odea.’

An eclipse was often made the subject of a
special entry, the day on which it happened having
been commonly designated ‘a dark or black day,’
as at Brignal, Yorkshire :

‘1652. March 29. The darke Monday the
Sunn being eclipsed 10 in 12 that is ten parts in
twelve darkened, so that the day seemed as twilight.’

In the register of Langtree, Devonshire, under
the date of April 22, 1715, the following note
appears: ‘Memorand—The sun totally eclipsed
abt 9 in y° morning (opus mirand),’

And on September 13, 1699, at St. Andrew’s,
Newcastle, ‘the sun and the mune was in the
clips betwixt nin and ten in the morning and was
darkish about three quarters of an hour.’

In the year 1618 some excitement was caused
throughout the country by the appearance of a

comet ; for, according to the superstitious belief
of those times,

‘Comets we see by night, whose shage’d portents
Foretell the coming of some dire events,’

Strange Natural Phenomena. 243

And so, with dread forebodings, was penned
the following memorandum in the register of
Nantwich:

uneen last past, 1618, in the month of
November many times there appeared eastward
a Blazing Starr, betokenninge godds judgements
feowmands «us for Sine. the lord in mercye be
mercifull unto us.’

The arrival in the year 1680 of another comet
seems to have caused some excitement, an event
which was considered worthy of being registered
by the parson of Crowhurst, Sussex, who has left
this memorandum:

‘A blazing starre appeared in ys kgdom in y®
yeare 1680: it did first shew itself roS December
yt yeare 80 which did stream from y® south west
to y° middle of y® heaven broader y2 that a Raine
Bow by fame and continued till y° latter end of
February.’

At Collumpton, Devon, on March 19, 1719,
‘in the evening between seven and eight a great
light was seen’; and a similar one is recorded as
occurring at Huddlesceugh, Cumberland, in 1653.
@n March 30, 1716, “a strange sort of light in
the aire’ is noted in the parish register of Chapel-
en-le-Frith, which was, no doubt, an unusually
brilliant appearance of the Northern Lights.
The same night on which this appearance was
noted at Chapel-en-le-Frith it also caused con-
siderable consternation in other Peak villages,
At Hartington, along with a similar appearance
which was noticed on the 6th of the same month,
it was so vivid and caused so much alarm as to

234 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

form the subject of a ballad in a chap-book of the
period :

‘On THE STRANGE AND WONDERFUL SIGHT THAT WAS SEEN
IN THE AiR ON THE 6 or Marcu, 1716.

‘ The sixth of March—kind neighbours, this is true—
A wonder in the sky came to my view;

I pray believe it, for I tell no lye,

There’s many more did see it as well as I.

‘I was on travel, and was very late—
To speak the truth, just about daylight’s gate ;
My heart did tremble, being all alone,
To see such wonders—the like was never known.

‘The first of all so dark it was to me,
That much ado my way I had to see;
I turn’d me round to see some lights appear,
And then I saw those wonders in the air.

‘ These lights to me like great long spears did show,
Sharp at end—kind neighbours, this is true;
I was so troubled I could not count them o’er,
But I suppose there was above a score.

< Then I saw like blood it did appear,
And that was very throng among the spears;
I thought the sky would have opened in my view,
I was so daunted I knew not what to do.

‘ The next I saw two clouds meet fierce together,
As if they would have fought one another;
And darkened all these spears excepting one:
They gave a clash and quickly they were gone.

: The very last day in the same month, I’m told,
Many people did strange sights behold
At Hartington—the truth I will not spare:
That night they saw great wonders in the air.

‘ This Hartington it is in Derbyshire,
And credible persons living there;
They have declared that wonders they did view
The very last night in March it’s certain true.’*

* Quoted in the Refiguary, vol. vi., pp. 230, 231.

Strange Natural Phenomena. 2215

In the register, too, of Langtree, Devon, we
find this entry:

mulinen ye 1o, 1708, ab’ 8 in y° evening a
great amazing meteor Light was seen in y°® air;
after y5 an uncommon Thunder was heard ; and
y® Light separating abt ye middle soon disap-
peared.’

Earthquakes, again, are noticed. Thus a quaint
entry in the Nantwich register speaks of an earth-
quake in 1612-13 thus:

“This same yeare on the 18 March chaunced
a terrible earthquake between 7 and 8 of the
Clocke in the forenoone w® came with a most
fearfull noyse and horrible shakeinge, the space
of 3 minutes, ws is noe doubt a sure signe that
the cominge of Christ is at hand, and even at the
ores:

A memorandum in the Aylestone registers, under
June 1, 1684, chronicles a collection made for
Runswick, in the North Riding of Yorkshire,
pie town sunk by earthquake, and the in-
habitants loss besides houses, above twelve hundred
pounds’ The sum collected amounted to six
shillings and sixpence.

In the register of St. Mary Magdalene, Canter-
bury, the following entry has been crossed out:
‘The great shake of yS earth was September ye 8,
1692. After it comes an entry relating to one
Richard Kingnorth, who was hanged for ‘ stealeing
a hors,’ and then follows: ‘The greate shake of
the earth was September the 8: 1692.’

But, as it has been pointed out, the wrong date
is given for this earthquake. The event was

236 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

recorded twice, by two different persons, and it
is impossible to say why the first entry was crossed
out. Evelyn apparently refers to this earthquake
as having occurred a week later—September 15,
1692: ‘There happened an earthquake, which,
though not so great as to do any harm in England,
was universal in all these parts of Europe. It
shook the house at Wotton.’

Another earthquake is noticed at Exeter on
July 19, 1727: “Between four and five of cmc
clocke in the morning, all the houses in Exeter
did shake with an earthquake that people shakt
in their beds from one side to the other, and was
all over England, and in some places beyond sea,
but did little damage.’

And on November 18; 1795) we Eann MOn
the Loughborough register how at about ‘half an
hour after eleven o’clock this night here the earth
quaked so as to awake several people, and caused
some house bells to ring.’ In a Sheffield register
similar shocks on April 2 and 4, 1750; April 19,
1754, and November 1, 17865, are alluded to.

The Rector of East Hoathley, Sussex, used both
pen and pencil to record the fact of a singular
appearance in the heavens on February 17, 1638:

‘A parhelion on each side of the sun was seen
by many, with a bow over the true sun, with
the ends upwards in the morning in this form.
“Consider the work of God, for who can make
that straight which he has made crooked?”
(Ticcles: vii T3) a

_ * See ‘Sussex Archzological Collections,’ vol. iv., p. 270.

Chiari R: XMI.

SRARANGE SIGHTS;

HE love of the marvellous has never failed

to attract attention, and at all times sensa-

tional shows have proved a lucrative venture. At

the same time, one would scarcely expect to find

instances of these recorded in the parish register,

amongst matters of serious and religious import.

But oftentimes the parson jotted down anythin

that peculiarly interested him, and which had

come under his observation in the course of the
week.

Thus, the register of St. Nicholas’, Durham,
has this curious entry:

“1568. Mem. That acertaine Italian brought
into the Cittie of Durham the eleventh day of
June, in the year above sayd a very strange gep
monstrous serpent in length sixteene feet, in
quantitie and dimensions greater than a horse;
which was taken and killed by speciall pollicie
in Œthiopia within the Turkes Dominions. But
before it was killed it had devoured—as it is

238 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

credibly thought—more than one thousand per-
sons, and destroyed a whole country.’

Shows of the Barnum type were very common
in days gone by, bands of travelling conjurers
and showmen going from town to town with their
highly sensational bills of fare. An entry in
Loughborough register records how in the year
1579 a man was slain by a lioness ‘ which was
brought into the towne to be seen of such as
would give money to ‘see her ~ Ele was) sere
wounded in sundry places, and was buried on the
26" day of August. Phe stones too, ane wey
varied in their character, but, arom whatever
source derived, they savour strongly of the mar-
vellous. Thus, according to the statement of the
parish clerk of Firmingley, Notts, the following
extraordinary occurrence happened in July, 1707,
of which he was himself an eye-witness:

‘Zachariah Bolton, riding with his gun on
Mr Barnardiston’s bay horse into “ Auckley Colt
Field,” found five stags herded about two hundred
yards west from ye bottom of the “ Long Hedge.”
He fired amongst them, and disabled one in the
hinder parts; then quitting his horse, he caught
the. stag by the hind leg, and called to Jarah
Wood and myself, who were not far off, for help,
but the stag struggling and braying, the horse
took him by the neck, and beat him with his
fore-foot till he lay still, then we took him alive,
laid him on the horse and carried him to the
parsonage house at Firmingley, into the little
court-yard before the kitchen door, where he was

killed and drest, by the order of John Harvey

Strange Sights. 239

Esq" of Ickwell Bury, who was there present, and
had before given us an order to go about the said
mansdenon Mhe truth of this I am ready to
attest upon oath if so required.’

A gruesome and highly strange occurrence is
recorded in Baunton parish register as having
- taken place in the year 1646, which we quote
below:

‘In this parish of Baunton, in the Clarkes
House—one Richard Syfolly—upon St. Matthias
Day, 1646, about eleven of the Clock in the
forenoon there rose out of an old dry table bord
of birch,—on which bord I Henry Topp minister
there now wright these words Aug** 24 being
St. Bartholomew’s Day—a water, reddish of the
colour of blood, and so continued till rising and
runninge alonge and downe the Table, all that
afternoone, and the nighte followinge till the next
day, and about the hour when it first began, and
so ceased. That same day, St. Matthias (I re-
member) I read prayers in the chaple but was not
called to be an eye witness of this strange sight,
and was informed of it by the eye witnesses the
very next Lordes Day when I came to officiat in
the Chapell. Many of the neighbours heard their
reports as well as my selfe Henry Topp who have
it avered under their said hands and marks.”*

Equally curious is a ghost story which forms
the subject of a memorandum in the register of
Brisley, Norfolk, and which is deserving of
notice:

* See ‘Gloucestershire Notes and Queries,’ 1887, vol. 1i.,

B 71:

240 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

“Dec. 12, 1706. 1, Robert Withers, M.A.
Vicar of Gately, do insert here a story which I
had from undoubted hands, for I have all the
moral certainty of the truth of it possible :—

‘Mr. Grove went to see Mr. Shaw on the
2-1 of August last. As they sat talking in the
evening, says Mr Shaw, < On the (21% of
the last month as I was smoking my pipe and
reading in my study between eleven and twelve
at night, in comes Mr. Naylor—formerly Fellow
of St. John’s College, but had been dead full
four years. When I saw mim Il wasi mar
much affrighted, and I asked him to sit down,
which accordingly he did for about two hours,
and we talked together. I asked him how it
fared with him. He said, “Very well” “Were
any of our old acquaintances with him: ‘No’

at which I was much concerned); ‘but Mr.
Orchard will be with me soon, and yourself not
long after.’ As he was going away I asked
him if he would not stay a little longer, but he
refused. I asked him if he would call again,
‘No; he had but three days’ leave of absence,
and he had other business.’”’

‘N.B. Mr. Orchard died soon after. Mr. Shaw
is now dead. He was formerly fellow of St. John’s
College, an ingenuous good man. I knew him
there, but at his death he had a college living in
Oxfordshire, and here he saw the apparition.’

A correspondence which passed between the
Rev. John Hughes, of Jesus College, Cambridge,
and the Rev. Mr. Bonwicke, very shortly after
the event referred to took place, was subsequently

Strange Sights. 241

published in the Gentleman's Magazine, gave
more exact and circumstantial particulars of this
mysterious affair. It is said that Mr. Shaw had
been a noted enemy to a belief in apparitions, and
in society had been accustomed to inveigh against
any credence being placed in them ; but after the
presumed interview with the apparition of his old
friend, he is said to have altered his views about
the spiritual life.

The Lambeth register contains the burial of the
celebrated aolep and physician, Simon Forman,
who, says Lilly, ‘ was very judicious and fortunate
in horary question and sicknesses’ ; and respect-
ing his death the same authority tells the follow-
ing curious stony

‘The Sunday night before he died, his wife
and he being at supper in their garden house, she
being pleasant, told him that she had been in-
formed he could resolve whether man or wife
should die first—Whether shall I (quoth she)
bumy you on no; Oh Wrunco (for so he called
her), thou wilt bury me, but thou wilt sore repent
ica, sbut how long first’ I shall die, said
he, ere Thursday night. Monday came, all was
well ; Tuesday came, he was not sick ; Wednes-
day came, and still he was well; with which his
impertinent wife did taunt him in the teeth.
Thursday came and dinner was ended, he very
well, he went down to the water side and took
a pair of oars, to go to some buildings he was in
hand with, in Puddle Dock. Being in the middle
of the Thames he suddenly fell down, saying, An

16

242 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

impost, an impost, and so died. A most sad storm
of wind immediately ensued.’

An entry in the Croydon register records ‘a
description of a monstrous birth, born of the body
of Rose Easterman, wife of John Easterman, being
a child with two heads, four arms, four legs, one
body, one navel, and distinction of two male
children, and was born the 27e Or January
1721-28

And among the burials of the register of
Trinity Church, Chester, this memorandum is
given :

‘John Brookes Mason who poynted the Steple
1610 and made many showes and pastymes on
the Steple of Trinity, and also on the toppe of
St. Peter’s Steple as many thousands did witnesse,
dyed 10 July and bur 1: July in the Church Yard
(1614) broke his necke going down a payre of
stayres by the Church,’

CHARTER XIV.

LOCALE EVENTS:

N many parishes the register served as a kind
of note-book for the parson, and oftentimes
contains miscellaneous memoranda of local interest
— brief but pregnant notes on passing events,
and the ever-varying circumstances of parochial
lifen
Dr. Kennett, Bishop of Peterborough (1718-
1728), in his first Visitation to his clergy, re-
marked on this subject: ‘One more thing I would
intimate to you, that you are not only obliged
to enter the day and year of every christening,
wedding, and burial, but it is left to your dis-
cretion to enter down any notable incident of
times and seasons, especially relating to your own
parish and the neighbourhood of it... . If such
memorable things were fairly entered, your parish
registers would become chronicles of many strange
occurrences that would not otherwise be known,

* <The Registers of Prestbury,’ Record Society, 1881.
Introduction, pp. Xii xiii.
16—2

K

244 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

and would be of great use and service for posterity
to know.’

Some parsons seem to have acted on this prin-
ciple, and to have entered even the most ordinary
and trivial occurrences.

Church robberies are occasionally noticed. An
entry in Hackney register, dated October, 1689,
runs thus:

‘Stolen out of the vestry of St. John, Hackney,
on the 2374 inst, one new green bible, two sur-
plices, an old gown, a green velvet Case for the
pulpit Cushion, the hearse Cloth, one green pulpit
Cloth, and a small sum of money.’

And under the year 1633, the following curious
entry occurs in the parish register of North Wing-
field :

‘Upon the first day of August or there aboute
their was a great clock plum stolen out of the
steeple, which was eight or nine stone weight,
sum strong body did steal y* or else it could not
have been carried away for I could not lift it with
one hand, at the same time there was a kaye left
in at Booth (?) Savage house which did unlock
the Chapple door when they pleased to goe and
ringe when I was out . .. And mamie times the
Churche doores was left open when I never did
know of it by this means allso by going into the
Chappell window ¢>7 breaking the . . . door into
the Chancell. At there pleasure the Church was
made common and doores left open alnight manie
times.’

We may also quote another curious entry which

Local Events. 245

occurs in the register of Bexley, under the year
1683:

‘That in the week before Palm Sunday about
the 18 March, I Benjamin Huntington, Vicar
of Bexley, in the County of Kent, for y° discharge
of my duty and conscience, did certifie to the
Churchwardens of the parish aforesaid, that there
were severall pieces of plate, vizt two Silver
Flagons and Silver Almes Dish (a Bason) alienated
from the use of the Church, to which they were
given by pious and generous benefacto™ and had
Beem) ever since the mmes of the, late horrid
Rebellion. And did then likewise according to the
best Information acquaint them yt they were de-
posited by M" Nicholas Franckwell, sometime
Vicar, in the hands of ME Anne Grymes.’

A fire, as nowadays, occasionally caused no
small excitement in village life, as may be gathered
from the following memorandum, recorded in
Mayfield register under the year 1611:

‘Upon the Saboath daye, being the 15 daye
of Maye, about 8 o'clock in the night arose a
great fire in the house of Thos. Stephen, at the
west end of Mayfield towne, and burnt downe
both his house and the next house adjoining, and
sett on fire another house and also a barne. The
fire by God’s providence was put out, the whole
towne being in great danger, by reason of the
violence of the wind, which then was towards the
west.’

And a memorandum in the Nantwich register
relates how ‘upon Thursday, the 29 October in
this yeare [1629], about 12 of the Clocke in the

246 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

night there happened a great and sodden fire in
the house of one Thomas Jackson, in Welche
Row, beginning in a chamber on [over] ME
Wettenhall’s gates and lastinge for the space of
almost two hours consuming the roofs of three
bayes of buildings and more. How the fire began
is uncertain, but thought to be through the care-
lessness and negligence of some wretchles person
dwelling and inhabiting in the said house of the
said Thomas Jackson by a Candle; which fire
although it were very furious and raging yet by
the providence of Almightie God and very many
ready and willing people which desperately ven-
tured for the quenchinge thereof (blessed be God)
the same was staydd without further losse.’

Speaking of fires, it may be noticed that occa-
sionally the parish register has perished through
fire, as happened about the year 1830, when
Lewisham Church was destroyed, together with
the registers dating from the year 1550. Simi-
larly, in the year 1857, the vesty of the: church
of Penwortham, in Lancashire, was burnt, and
with it the registers commencing in 1586. The
Great Fire of London is incidentally noticed in
the register of All Hallows, Bread Street :

‘1667, June 19. Was born and clnisteneds
Michael, son of Michael and Phoebe Pyndar ;
but by reason of the dreadful fire, was born in
Coleman Street, in Sir William Bateman’s house,
where many of this parish for some time in-
habited.’*

It has been suggested that Sir William had,

* Burn, ‘ Barish Registers, qo 87.

Local Events. 247

like many others, after this calamitous fire thrown
open his mansion as a refuge for the homeless,
many hundreds of whom there must have been.

In the register of St. Dionis Backchurch, under
May 20, 1667, this memorandum is given:

‘M's Martha Bennett, wife of M" John Bennett,
Pewterer, that dwelt in the parish at the time of
the great fire, dyed the seaventeenth day of May,
and was buried in the ruines of the Church the
twentieth day of May.’

And under June 14 of the same year this entry
occurs :

‘Mt Thomas Stonehouse, Apothecary, an In-
habitant in the Parish at the time of the said fire,
dyed the thirteenth day of June, and was buried
in the ruines of the Church, in the body or
Middle part of the Church, the fourteenth day
of June 1667.’

nem Aweuse, 1666, to the end of 1667, no
entries were made in the register of St. Antholin,
London, owing, no doubt, to the Great Fire,
from which the church suffered. It was, however,
restored about the year 1682 by Sir Christopher
Wren, and was made the church of the then
united parishes of St. Antholin and St. John
Baptist.

And a brief in the parish of Loughborough
records that ‘upon Friday, the 5" day of October,
1666, there happened, about twelve o’clock in the
daytime, a sad and lamentable fire which by the
space of two hours, burnt and consumed down
to the ground fifty dwelling-houses, with malt
houses, etc., to the value of £1924 1° 4%. And

248 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

that also upon Monday, the 12“ day of November
next following, there happened another fire, which
in a short time burnt to the ground seven bays of
building, some of them filled with Corn ; and the
loss thereby did amount to fifty pounds, ten shil-
lings ép sixpence.’

An entry in the register of Collingbourne,
Kingston, records how there happened on ‘ Tues-
day night October 21% 1662, about the middest
of the night a sodeine fearefull and lamentable
fyer in the dwellinge house of Henry Seymore
of Sunton, gent, and as they saide about go yeares
of age, in we saide fyer the saide Henry was
burned in his bed; but some small part of him
being afterwards found was buried the Fryday
followeinge, being October 24 1662.’

A similar memorandum occurs in the register
of Hinckley:

‘Sept. 5, 1728, a sudden and terrible fire about
noon destroyed the new house of Anne Wood-
ward, widow, and the houses, barns, stables, out-
houses, goods, wool, and harvest produce, stocking-
frames, and shop-goods of William Abbot, William
Alwey, Samuel Allen, Thomas Brown, Joseph
Evans, Thomas Hurst, Joseph Laurence, Sarah
Paul, ete. . . . and of eighty other persons; eke
whole loss, upon a low and the ill-judged com-
putation of twelve regulators, was £3434 to the
great detriment of those people, and of all the
town,’

A royal hunt in the neighbourhood of a quiet
village was a great event, and as such was con-

sidered worthy of being duly chronicled by the

Local Events. 249

parson of Fordham, Cambridgeshire, who has made
this memorandum:

“1604. Upon Wednesday y 27 of Feb? y® year
above written y° High and mighty Prince James
by y° grace of God King of Great Britain France
and Irelande, Defender of ya Faith, ¢c.—did hunt
ye hare with his own hounds in our Fields of
Fordham and did kill six near a place called
Blackland and afterwards did take his repast in
y same Fields at a Bush near unto King’s Path.’

And an entry in one of the registers of Grey-
stoke relates to the annual celebration appointed
by James I. in memory of his deliverance from
the Gowrie plot:

meor August “fitydaye the va day ‘was
comnded for to be aA holy daye yearely from
cessation of laybor w® gyvinge of thanks for the
kyngs most excelent matye for his ma’ p’serva-
tion and deliverance from the crewell conspiracie
practized against his maties pson in Scotland that
va daye of August 1600.’

But neither the English nor the Scotch were
prepared to believe in the existence of this alleged
conspiracy ; and a modern writer tells us that
when this annual thanksgiving was ordered in
England and Scotland ‘the English laughed at
the farce, and the Scotch were indignant at the
impiety. The holiday was kept at Greystoke for
three successive years, and then seems to have been
superseded by the 5th of November thanksgiving
for James’s deliverance from the Gunpowder Plot.
Under November 5, 1606, we find this memo-
randum recorded: ‘The sayde daye was kenges

250 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

holyday and the most part of the men... in
the pish . . | at dywine semvicene

On October 13, 1661, the steeple otis Meters,
Sandwich, fell down and demolished the south
aisle, a curious note descriptive of which occur-
rence is duly entered in the register :

‘That same day the same year was a Sabbath
day, there were two sermons preached there that
day, and it fell down within six or seven hours
after the people were gone home, presently after
one quarter of an hour past eleven o’clock at
night. Had it fell at the time when the people
were there, the chiefest of the Town €9 Parish had
been killed, ¢ buried under the rubbish ¢p stones
and timber ; but the Lord was so gracious as to
show a miraculous mercy in that judgment, for
there was no man, woman, or child, killed or hurt
and very few heard it. The rubbish was three
fathom deep in the middle of the Church, the
bells underneath it; two or three rods long it
lay.’

Under 1772, April 14, in Streatham remsen
this entry is given:

‘Russell_—N.B. this person was always known
under the guise or habit of a woman and answered
to the name of Elizabeth as registered in this
parish Nov. 218 1669, but at death proved to be
a man.

A full account of this character is given under
the head of ‘Streatham Worthies’ in Mr. Frederick
Arnold’s ‘ History of Streatham.’ It appears from

* See ‘Cumberland and Westmoreland Antiquarian and
Archzological Society Transactions,’ vol. i., p. 338.

Local Events. 2 i

the entries in the parish registers that his father,
John Russell, had three daughters and two sons—
William, born in 1668, and Thomas in 1672;
and it is probable that the above person (com-
monly known as ‘Betsy the Doctress’) was one
of these. Lysons tells that, in the course of his
wanderings, this eccentric individual ‘attached
himself to itinerant quacks, learned their remedies,
practised their calling, and that this knowledge,
combined with his great experience, gained for
him the reputation of being a most infallible
doctress.’ In his disguise he was a very convivial
old lady, it being his practice to treat his com-
panions at the village ale-house.

A similar case bearing on our subject is reported
to have happened early in the present century.
The person who acted as parish clerk, and was
always dressed as a man, and had, moreover, been
married to a woman some time before her death,
was found at her decease to be a woman. And
in the register of St. Bodolph, Aldgate, under
July 17, 1655, we find this entry:

“William Clark, son of John Clark, a soldier,
and Thomasine, his wife, who herself went for a
souldier, and was billetted at the Three Hammers,
in East Smithfield, about seven months, and after
was delivered of this child . . . She had been a
souldier by her own confession, about five years,
and was some time Drummer to the Company.’

On the fly-leaf of one of the Bampton registers
is this memorandum:

‘The origin of the name of Mount-Owen was
as follows: Some persons were passing by, when

252 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

the cottage at the top of the hill was in building ;
among whom was an eccentric old shoe-maker
named John Neal, and he was asked to give it
a title. He said it must be called Mount-Owen,
the Rev. Hugh Owen being Vicar of one of the
portions of Bampton at that time.’

To quote another entry in which the eccen-
tricity of woman is further illustrated, we find in
the register of Chapel-en-le-Frith, under March 12,
1717, the following strange adventure of a young
girl narrated. It appears she was about thirteen
years of age, and her name was Alice Phenix.
She ‘came to this town to a shop for half a stone
of towe for her master, being an apprentice to
Wa Ward of the Peak Forest. She went from
this town in the evening and called at Peter
Downs house, who lived then at Laneside. They
sent her away in good time to have gone home.
She turned again and was found at the house when
they were going to bed. Peter called her in and
sent her to bed with his daughter, next morning
calling her up very soon he sent her away, but as
they were going to plough found her again, and
his son did chide her very ill; and she Seemed
then to make best haste hone but sitting down
between two ruts in George Bouden’s Part on
Paislow, sat there that day and next, and Friday,
Saturday, Sunday, and Monday till noon. Two
of which days, the 15 and 16 was the most
severe snowing and driving that had been seen in
the memory of man. This gitl was found about
one o'clock on Monday, by William Jackson, of
Sparrowpit, and William Longden, her neighbour

Local Events. 258

ii ehemunorest, Lhey carried her to the same
house back again, to Peter Downe’s house, and
after she had got some refreshment, a little warm
milk, could warm herself at the fire afterwards,
and could turn her cy move her legs, with her
hands, and after was carried to her master’s house
that night, ¢7 is now—March 25, 1717—quite
well, but a little stiff in her limbs. This was the
Lord’s doings.’

According to the State Papers, dated June 30,
1631, special measures were adopted for the relief
of the poor in the hundred of Nantwich, with
the result that in the following year the principal
owners of property in the town signed an agree-
ment, which was entered in the burial register as
follows:

‘ Memt— Ít is covenanted, promised and agreed
by us the gentlemen and others the inhabitants of
this Towne whose names are subscribed. That
by reason our Towne is greatly oppressed with
Inmates and Strangers continually cominge to
reside amongst us without any restraynt, in regard
whereof our own poore cannot so well be re-
sieuved [received] as otherwise they might. That
from henceforward, wee will not sett or let any
of our houses or cottages to strangers dwellinge
out of our Towne except they shall be such as
shall be able to secure the Towne, by bond to the
Churchwardens, for the time beinge, from any
change that they or their ffamilies might draw
upon ytt.’

An interesting memorandum in the second
register-book of Mildenhall informs us that ‘ there

254 Social Life as Told by Parish Registers.

was lost at sea, with ye Duke going into Scotland,
May 5, 82, E of Roxburgh, E @iSrian, 1 lope
ton, ST Joseph Duglas, M” Hide, with several of
his officers 130 seamen.’

It has been pointed out m thes Collectanea
Topographica et Genealogica’ (v. 351) that the
manuscript of this memorandum corresponds with
entries written in the years 1680, 1681, and 1682,
in which latter year the Duke of York, afterwards
James II., nearly suffered shipwreck on his voyage
to Scotland. The ship was the G/oucester frigate,
which struck on a sandbank off Yarmouth. The
Duke, with Colonel John Churchill, afterwards
Duke of Marlborough, escaped with difficulty in
the ship's barge. Robert, ‘third Rankom Rox
burgh ; Lord O’Brien, som of the seventh an
of Thomond ; John Hope, Laird of Hopetoun ;
Sir Joseph Douglas, and the Hon. James Hyde,
youngest son of Lord Chancellor Clarendon, and
brother-in-law to the Duke, all perished.

And from the old register of Wigston, Leicester-
shire, it appears from a memorandum dated 1599
that moles were so general in this parish, that at
one time as much as one guinea was paid to the
mole-catcher for destroying them ; and in the same
year a further sum of £1 10s. was expended for
destroying eighty-seven dozen and a half. This
charge was defrayed by a twopenny levy upon
every yard of land.

Entries of this kind, which we find scattered
over the pages of the parish register, apart from
their local interest, have in many cases an intrinsic
value as recording facts illustrative of the past.

INDEX.

ACCIDENT, fatal, at Blackfriars,
212. 213

Advent marriages, 135

Adventure, strange, of a young
girl, 252

Agreements inserted in registers,
41-43, 174

Ale-bruer, 177

Almanacks, rules for marrying in,
136

Apparition, curious, 240, 24I

Apprenticeship, 189, 190

Aquavity-man, 178

Astrology, 121, 122, 241

Baby-farming, 116, 117,

Banns of marriage proclaimed in
market-place, 127, 128

Barber-surgeon, 176

Base-gotten children, 108

Bastards, 108

Beggars, rules relating to, 97

Bell-ringing customs, 194

Bet, curious, 189, 190

Betrothal ceremonies, 136

Bloody Meadow, duel fought at
the, 183

Boat accident, 209

Boundaries, parish, beating of,
196, 197

Bowels, burial of, 161

Bowls on Sunday, 206

| Brawls, fatal, 187

|

Bridal couple, putting of, to bed,
144, 145

Briefs, 36-39

Bull, parish, 195

Bungay, black dog of, 220

Burial at midnight, 148, 149

by soldiers, 147, 148

—— by women, 147

— fees, 155

gardens, 164

in woollen, 158-160

of suicides, 150, 151

solemn, 152-154

usages, 147

Bye-blow, illegitimate child, 108

Calendar, change of style, 218

Cat, cure for bite of, 92

Caul, superstition relating to, 120,
I2I

Charities, parish, 198, 199

Charms, 75

Children, illegitimate, 108, 109

of God, 109

wrongly named, 113, 114

Chrisoms, 117, 118

Church, backside of, 148

—— customs, 204-219

robberies, 3, 244

Civil marriages, 133

Cock-throwing, 205, 206

256

Index.

Coffin, burial without a, 152

Comedians, 179

Comets, 232

Commonwealth, registers during
the, 133

Contracts
40, 41

Creatura Christi, 109

Cromwell’s daughter, marriage of,
132

Croydon almshouses, 200, 201

Court letter writer, 177

Curfew-bell, 192-194

Curfew-land, 193

entered in registers,

Dancing-masters, 179

Deaf and dumb, marriages of, 140
Death and the grave, 147-169
Deaths, strange, 165, 166
Debtors, sanctuary for, 185
Disputes, how settled, 179-181
Dog-whippers, 216, 217
Dog-whippers’ Marsh, 216
Dreaman, a, 177

Drink, fatal effects of, 186, 187
Drought, great, 228

Duels, fatal, 183, 184

Earthquakes, 235
Easter dues, 214, 215
Eclipses, 233
Epidemics, 81-93
Excommunicated,
148, W9 T
Excommunication, 105, 106

burial of the,

Fewters, idle people, 184
Fields, burial in the, 89
Fires, some disastrous, 245
Folk medicine, 9I

Fools and jesters, 171
Fortune-tellers, 74
Foundlings, 109-111
hospital for, 113
Frosts, great, 229-231

Garden, burial in, 164
Ghost story, 239

Gipsies, 75-77

Gowrie plot, 249

Graves, position of, 162, 163

|

Hardwicke’s Act, Lord, 18
Heart burial, 160, 161

—— death from broken, 167
Heat, great, 231

Hunt, royal, 248, 249

Illegitimate children, 108, 109

Jockeys, 179
Jolly rant, the plague so called, 83

Lent, meat in, 212, 213

Light, strange, seen, 233
Lightning, death from, 221, 222
Lion, baiting of, 195, 196
Lutenist, 177

| Mad dog, cure for bite of, 92

Market-place, banns declared in,
127) 128

Marriage, 124-146

by justice of peace, 131

contracts, 137

tax, 139

Merry-begotten, illegitimate chil-
dren so called, 108

Meteors, 233-235

Midnight burials, 148-191

Midwife, baptism by, 109

Military discipline, 99

Mistakes, comical, in registers, 113

Moles, 254

Mortuary fees, 156, 157

Nativities, casting of, 74

Natural phenomena, 220

No Man’s Piece, land so called,
103

Nuptial contracts, 136

Nurse children, 116

Occurrence, mysterious, at Baun-
ton, 239
Orchard, burial in, 163

Palmistry, 75
Pannyer-man, 177
Parish broils, 33-36
clerks, 56-58

| —— customs, 192-203

I

fees, 58-60

Index.

25

Parish lands, 35

life, 25-46

—— pews, 60-63

rights, 30, 31

scandals and punishments,
94-106

Parson and people, 49-68

Pewage money, 66

Pictor-man, 178

Plays in church, 205

Poor Laws, 25-27, 33

Pork Acre, 199

Posting sickness, plague so called,
82

‘Rates, old, 190, 191

—— burnt, 3, 4, 8, 15, 246

Registers damaged through negli-
gence, 9

interpolations in, 10-12

— lost, 9

—— mutilation of, 2-4 10, II, 13

preservation of, 16, 17

—— sold, 6, 7

—— stolen, 3

value as legal evidence, I0-

12
Registration Act, the, 19, 21
Rose’s Act, 18

Royal touch, the, 79, 80
Rushes for churches, 217

Sabbath, observance of, 206-208

Saltpetre-man, 177

Scape-begotten, illegitimate chil-
dren so called, 108

Scrofula, cure for, 79

Sermons, 77-79

Serpent, a huge, 237

Servants, persons of quality as,
72)

Seventh son, superstition relating
to TY) :

Shorthand, curious specimen of,
66

Shows, curious, 238

Sieve and shears, 77
Singing-man, 178

Small-pox, 81

Smocks, marriage in, 140
Snow-storms, great, 228, 229
Social usages, 170-191

Solemn burials, 152-154
Spinsters, 142

Sponsalia, 136

Stamp Act, 18

Stealing, death for, 100

Stocks, parish, 95

Stop-gallant, plague so called, 82
Storms, destructive, 15, 223-225
Strangers, decision relating to, 253
Strange sights, 237-242
Suicides, burial of, 150, 151
Sun, curious appearance in, 236
Superstitions, 69-80

Sweating sickness, 81

Thunderbolt, death by, 221
Tithes, 27

Tomb-maker, 177
Torchlight burials, 149
Trades, curious, 175, 176
obsolete, 177

Virginal master, 152, 175

Want, death from, 184, 185

Water-bearer, 176

Wey-house, the, 176

Whipping, customs relating to,
96-98

Whitsuntide, marriage forbidden
at, 135

Wife’s debts, 139

Wills made by parson, 62, 63

Winding-sheet, burial in, 152

Wise man, 74

Wise woman, 75

Woodmonger, a, 177

Worms, death from, 81

THE END:

Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row, London.

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